


By Your Side

by awarrington



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek (2009)
Genre: First Time, Five Year Mission, Fluff, M/M, Starfleet Academy, Virgin Kirk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-04
Updated: 2012-05-04
Packaged: 2017-11-04 20:22:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/397855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awarrington/pseuds/awarrington
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim’s lost a lot of things in his life – but there’s one thing he can’t seem to lose even when he tries.  Until a certain Vulcan enters his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arminaa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arminaa/gifts).



> This story was originally published in the first edition of arminaa's reboot K/S e-zine [Universal Constant](http://community.livejournal.com/uczine/1279.html), January 2011.

It’s Jim Kirk’s twenty second birthday and he’s sitting in a field holding hands with Daisy McAllister as they silently gaze up at the night sky. The twinkling stars form a vast and distant backdrop to what seems, in the great scheme of things, to be their insignificant existence, microscopic in the scale of the cosmos. He feels he’s on the edge of something new and life-changing, but he doesn’t yet know what.

Jim has never regarded his birthdays as something to celebrate.

He ritualizes the day, ascribes his own meaning to it and, since almost from the time they first met ten years earlier, he’s shared part of it with Daisy. He’s always ensured he is out of the house at dawn, avoiding any attempt by members of his family to commemorate his birth – to his eternal relief, they finally gave up on him some time during his teens.

Over the years, he’s spent the day trying to crawl outside of himself by variously drinking, taking drugs, fighting, or doing physical activities until he’s exhausted and can’t think any more. Then, after sundown, he meets up with Daisy and they go and sit outdoors somewhere. In the early days, if it was clear, they looked up at the sky and Daisy would point to a star and ask its name – he memorized all the main ones before he was ten after grandpa Ti gave him his own telescope. He showed her all the constellations, and sometimes told her about the planets his mom and dad went to when they served in StarFleet.

Daisy entered Jim’s life when he was just into his teens. She seemed so out of place to him with her thick, southern accent when she was placed in his class at school, having moved to Riverside from Birmingham, Alabama.

Her arrival came a year after Jim discovered that his dick had a use other than for pissing – which was frankly awesome – and it was a simple matter to hack into his brother’s porn account to get access to source material for libidinous pursuits. Daisy being blond and pretty, already curvaceous and full-breasted, he found his fantasy focus switched to his new classmate – not that he let on to her or any of his friends that he wanted anything beyond a simple friendship. Jim found Daisy refreshingly different: she walked around with a cute scowl most of the time and hated Riverside, hated the weather, hated that Iowa was so _flat_. But she did like Jim Kirk.

Daisy’s parents are very strict, old-fashioned and God-fearing – her father is the minister in Riverside’s small Presbyterian chapel. They only accepted Jim as Daisy’s friend after she was approached after school by an older boy and Jim fought him off. Actually, Jim beat the boy to a pulp when he tried to molest Daisy – traveling to Iowa City for his martial arts classes every week coming in handy – but Daisy’s parents were willing to overlook the severity of her assailant’s injuries on account he saved Daisy from the clutches of an immoral sinner.

She knows how much Jim hated his step-dad, Frank, and resented him in his family’s life – not that they were around as his mom decided to continue her StarFleet career and spends a lot of time away on missions, and Sam ran away from home the day Jim drove George Kirk’s old corvette off the quarry cliff to prevent Frank from selling it. That earned him a thrashing from his step-dad. Daisy later told Jim her parents approved of Frank’s punishment, but she knew how much he hurt – and not just from the physical pain – and for the first time she actively sided with him rather than taking a neutral stance, holding his hand and telling him that Frank was a bad man for harming her Jim. That’s when he fell in love with Daisy. Scowling, complaining and all.

When they were fifteen, Jim finally persuaded Daisy to let him kiss her, and he began to call her 'babe'. Over the years they’ve both become very good at it, with Jim carefully hiding any sign of his arousal, which if Daisy noticed, she’s never mentioned. He does this because Daisy’s mom told her the _facts of life_ when she was fourteen, and she listens to her dad’s sermons, so she’s told Jim that sex outside of marriage is a sin and he won’t be getting any of _that_.

One of Daisy’s dad's favorite sermons is how drinking alcohol leads to sinful ways. Trisha Knowles, whose parents own the Riverside General Store, ended up pregnant at sixteen after getting drunk, and at the time, Daisy told Jim it proved that what her father says is true. Over the years, she's tried her best to persuade Jim not to drink and while he's given in to her about a lot of things, this has never been one of them. One day, after Frank beat him up, he stole some of his step-dad’s liquor, went out and got uproariously drunk and Daisy didn't speak to him for three days.

On that occasion, Jim didn't care because that day he had a bit of an epiphany of his own. Staggering down a lamp-lit street, he ran into a couple of kids from school, and seeing he was alone and the worse for wear, they began to taunt him because he was good-looking and bright. He left them both unconscious and it felt remarkably good. What was unexpected was that he had a hard on all the way through the admittedly one-sided fight; when he got back to his apartment, he got to work on Little Jimmy and had the best orgasm ever. It was even better than after a long necking session with Daisy. He wasn’t sure what that meant but he wasn’t one to think too deeply about it.

Jim soon discovered that any enjoyable physical exertion gave him a boner. He joined the school football squad and before he could take a shower with the rest of the team, he first had to retreat to the bathroom to beat off. Even after a session, he could never linger in the showers too long with all those hard-muscled, sweaty jocks, because Little Jimmy was always in danger of perking up again.

Trouble seems to follow Jim around. He’s never done anything really bad – he isn’t dishonest. But the cops confiscated his bike after he was caught breaking the speed limit for the third time; he was arrested for harvesting and selling magic mushrooms without a license; he was arrested for under age drinking more times than he can remember – and Daisy always frowned afterwards and lectured him about the sin of drinking and the trouble it brings, but she always forgave him. She seems to be okay with being friends with what amounts in her eyes to an unrepentant sinner, and while he's never really gotten the double standard she’s had where he’s concerned, neither has he ever questioned her on it.

A few times, he’s been arrested for assault. On those occasions, as Jim’s explained to Daisy, he never starts the fights, but a haze envelopes him once someone picks on him and when he comes out of it, his assailants are almost invariably worse off than him – unless he’s seriously outnumbered. What he's never mentioned to Daisy is Little Jimmy’s involvement in these fights, because they invariably leave him with a raging hard-on and he doesn’t think she’d understand (just as he's smart enough not to have told her how, after spending time necking with her, he always goes home to have a satisfying jerk-off). Other than that, he's always been able to talk to her about anything, and she never judges him. She may complain about a lot of things, but she's always willing to listen to him.

Despite the odd hiccup, they always look out for each another and no-one is closer to Jim than Daisy. In all those years through high school and beyond, Jim’s never strayed from Daisy. It took him a long time to figure out that all he wanted was to have a companion in his life who would make him as happy as he heard his mom made his dad in the few short years they were together - his grandparents shared stories with him about his parents when he was at a young and impressionable age. When he finished High School a year early, took a job as a mechanic at the local garage and rented his own apartment, they began to talk of getting married one day and having kids together – though she’s adamant they’ll have to move to Alabama. Jim’s okay with that – it’s not like he had a real _home_ in Iowa. Daisy's requirement that he wait until marriage before they have sex is not an issue because it seems his desire to be with the Right One is strong enough to overcome his more physical need to screw around.

By the age of twenty one, all Jim's friends had gotten laid and they all assumed he’s been screwing Daisy all this time as they’ve all seen the two of them kissing plenty of times. But at some point in the past year, the kissing stopped. Jim finds he doesn't mind as he’s begun to see Daisy as more of a sister, and if he's honest with himself it no longer feels right to kiss her, and she never seems to push it. But he continues to stay faithful to her, not wanting to hurt her – Riverside’s a small town and no-one has any secrets. Besides, with the StarFleet shipyard nearby, there's always a steady stream of new people in town to fight – and he knows his sexual energy needs an outlet of some kind.

So turning twenty two today, Jim wonders how he’s gotten to be that old – it seems like yesterday he and Daisy were still in high school together. As he gazes at the night sky, he finds the stars comforting in a way she isn’t, though he’d be hard-pressed to explain why. All he knows is that over the years he’s been harboring an ever-increasing yearning to go into the black, to have the freedom to wander the stars and discover what’s out there, good and bad. He doesn’t know why he’s never told Daisy about this longing – maybe because she isn’t a part of that dream.

So things have changed between them and even though he hates talking about _feelings_ – especially because half the time he doesn’t know how he fucking feels – some things need to be said. He knows they can’t go on like this any more – _he_ can’t go on, he amends, trying to be honest with himself. He’s not living, he realizes, he’s existing. A dull life in rural Riverside just isn’t cutting it for him any more.

“We haven’t kissed in a long while,” Jim says as an opener, hoping Daisy will do the talking, rather than leaving it to him.

He feels Daisy shift beside him as she lets out a sigh, her breath condensing in the cool air. “Yeah, I know. It’s not you, Jim, it’s me.”

He smiles inwardly at the old cliché and looks at her. “Yeah?”

Daisy stares at the ground, unable to meet his gaze. “My feelings for you have changed, Jim. It’s hard to explain. Like before, even though we never had sex, I kinda thought you were attractive that way. But now…” she trails off uncertainly.

“…it feels I’m more of a brother to you?” he finishes

Her head snaps up, eyes wide. “Yes! Oh heavens, I feel so bad, you know?”

Yeah, he knows, and he lets out the breath he didn’t know he was holding at finding out she feels the same way he does – but then, he shouldn't feel surprised as they’ve always been in tune with each other.

“So where’s that leave us?” he asks, knowing he’s putting the onus onto her. Since she has no idea he feels the same way, he realizes she probably thinks she’s breaking his heart, which makes him kind of a douchebag.

She turns her gaze to him and he forces himself to look away from the siren-call of the stars. “I don’t think we should get married, Jim,” she almost whispers and he knows she’s scared as she says it. He’s had a tough life and Daisy’s always been the one to comfort him through his troubles – she doesn’t want to be another person who hurt him.

“No, I don’t think we should,” he agrees and feels her almost slump beside him in relief.

He stares back up at the sky.

“You know I still love you, right?” she asks.

“Yeah, I know.” He’s never told her he loves her, even though he knew he did years ago. He’s just never been able to bring himself to say the words, but that’s okay – she knows how he feels about her, he’s pretty sure. He feels her squeeze his hand and she shifts to rest her head on his shoulder while he wraps his arm around her back to support her.

It’s as though a tether’s been released – one he was unaware he had – and he has the sudden realization he can now do whatever the fuck he wants. Riverside’s never felt like home; now with Daisy downgraded to just a friend, he’s answerable to no-one and the sense of freedom that thought comes with, is heady. He feels euphoric and wants to jump up and just _run_ ; he’s suddenly got all this energy and he feels ready to explode.

He tries hard to bank it, but after a while it becomes too much – he needs to get the fuck out of here, to exercise his new-found freedom. Unwrapping himself from Daisy he stands, offering her his hand to pull her up.

“We’re still friends, though, aren’t we?” Daisy asks, and she seems to search his face, maybe looking for a sign to show her how he’s taking all this.

Jim wraps his arms around her and hugs her – she never did grow much, the top of her head barely reaching his shoulder. “Sure we are, babe.”

She squeezes him then, when he uses his nickname for her, maybe feeling reassured. They break apart and walk side-by-side in silence back to his bike.

After he climbs on, she seats herself behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist the way she always does.

They’re no longer an item. Finally he’s gonna be able to have sex and he feels ecstatic. When he drops Daisy off at her house, he doesn’t realize he’ll never set eyes on her again as a year later, she and her parents decide to move back to Birmingham.


	2. Chapter 2

_The Warp Trail_ is a bar about halfway between Riverside and the shipyard. Fleeters go there – people employed at the yard, cadets on orientation visits, and new recruits all green and raring to go. It’s the best place in the county if you want to get laid. And Jim really does. He may not have actually screwed anyone, but over the years, he’s had a lot of practice flirting – Daisy never minded because she trusted him never to take it further, and he never did.

The place is buzzing more than usual – he’s lucked out. The bar’s full of cadets who’ll be getting on the shuttle to San Francisco the following morning – he knows their schedules by heart. These look like new recruits, green around the gills and often hot-headed – like their uniform confers some kind of badassery on them which they’ve got to prove; he’s had more than one good brawl here as a result. The bar-tenders turn over fast enough that any ban slapped on him never lasts more than a few months at most.

He’s propping up the bar, having had a couple of beers and several shots, when he spots a cadet striding through the door like she owns the place, confidence oozing from her as she struts to the bar in her short red dress and boots.

“Hi. I'd like a Klavnian fire tea. Uh...three Budweiser classics, two Cardassian sunrises, and a...”

“Try the Slusho, it's good,” the bartender suggests.

Jim leans forward, to see past the guy between them and smirks at her. “That’s a lot of drinks for one woman.”

She ignores him. “And a shot of Jack, straight-up,” she adds to the list.

Jim smiles at the bartender. “Make that two, her shot’s on me.”

“Her shot’s on her,” she repeats and looks at him. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Sassy. He likes that – it was one of Daisy’s endearing features, too. “Don’t you want to know my name before you reject me?”

“I'm fine without it.”

Fuck, he could worship this woman. He imagines what she’d look like naked with just _those boots_. “You’re fine without it?” No way he’s giving up on this. “It's Jim. Jim Kirk,” he tells her and waits for a response. And waits. Finally, he says, “If you don't tell me your name, I'm gonna have to make one up.”

She rolls her eyes and he loves it. “Uhura.”

“Uhura? No way – that’s the name I was gonna make up for you. Uhura what?”

“Just Uhura.”

Jim keeps pushing her to talk and thinks he’s doing pretty well, showing her that with his knowledge of xenolinguistics that he’s not just some dumb hick from nowheresville, when their repartee is rudely interrupted by another cadet. And things go downhill from there. As he gets thrown across the table, part of his brain acknowledges it was always going to be fuck or fight. Shame he didn’t get to fuck, but he’s cool with that.

He knows he’s taken on more than he bargained for when he runs out of steam and he’s taking punch after punch, the world narrowing down to the angry face of the guy he called Cupcake. Just when he’s on the verge of passing out, the guy stops and he realizes the ringing in his ears is actually a whistle.

“Outside, all of you. Now!” says a commanding voice.

A face comes into view above him. “Y’alright, son?”

Jim swallows the blood that’s trickling down the back of his throat. “You can…” he swallows again, “whistle really loud, you know that?” And then the world goes black.

Jim comes to while lying on the floor on his side, the bartender frowning at him, a hypo in his hand. Whatever was in it, it’s sobered him up.

“Dumbass,” the bartender says angrily. The guy’s a local, a couple of years ahead of him at school and has probably seen Jim goad men into a fight before. “You’re banned, Jim. And I’m turning you over to Captain Pike.”

Jim grins up at him, still punch-drunk. “Whatever.”

Strong arms pull him into a seated position. “Go get yourself cleaned up, son.”

It’s the captain – Pike – and for some reason, Jim feels compelled to do as he asks. Getting up isn’t easy – his whole body seems to ache and he gratefully takes the helping hand offered, pulling him to his feet.

In the harsh light of the bathroom his face is a mess, blood still flowing from his nose which may or may not be broken; he’s not sure. For once, he doesn’t feel like beating off right after, his body feeling too fragile, and even though the hypo sobered him, he still feels nauseous.

After splashing water on his face and rinsing his mouth until the water he spits out stops running pink, he takes a piss and then heads back into the bar, taking toilet paper with him to wipe away the blood that’s still not stopped trickling out his nose.

Pike’s sitting at a table and silently hands him a couple of strips of gauze which he stuffs up each nostril.

“Sit down.”

Jim hesitates for a moment before complying, eyeing the man warily. StarFleet have a lot of power – if the guy wanted to press charges, with his record, it could well mean a jail term even though he technically didn’t throw the first punch.

“I couldn’t believe it when the bartender told me who you are.”

And so begins one of the most surreal conversations of Jim Kirk’s short life. It’s like all the planets lining up, everything coming together to give him what he’s secretly dreamed of for the last few years – a ticket to the galaxy, a fucking ringside seat if he wants it.

When he started thinking about going up into the black, he’d kind of imagined getting a job in a merchant fleet. But as Pike talks, he knows he wants _this;_ what Pike’s offering him. He doesn’t want to haul supplies around the Federation, he wants exploration, science, the chance to fight badass Romulans and Klingons on an equal footing, on the best ships the Federation has to offer. On a ship like the _Enterprise_.

On the other hand: StarFleet. It’s the organization that left him, to all intents and purposes, an orphan, since his mom decided space was a better place to be than Riverside – and now he’s grown up, he doesn’t entirely blame her. Also, it is, first and foremost, a military set-up with ranks and hierarchy and orders to be obeyed, and he’s never been too great at that. There’s a willful side to him that makes him want to do the exact opposite of what he’s told to do. It's a legacy of his time with Frank.

On the other hand: easy access to a lot of young, fit people in uniform he can fuck.

Pike, the manipulative bastard, leaves him with a challenge, one that haunts him through the night as he rides his bike to god-knows-where and back, while trying to sort through all his thoughts and make a decision. He’s all too aware he’s at a crossroads in his life, that he has two choices to make: to stay or go. He knows he may never get this chance again.

He needs to find something to seriously challenge him before he goes off the deep end and does something stupid (like he hasn’t already a half-dozen times in his life). He knows Riverside no longer has anything to offer him – without Daisy and the two point two kids and the picket fence they’d planned, there’s nothing to keep him here.

In the end, he winds up at the shipyard at dawn.

_…all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by..._

Is this what he wants? He stares up at the floodlit half-finished hulk of what will be StarFleet’s flagship. It’s unformed, raw, just like he is, and he imagines himself on it, imagines himself one day commanding it. And _that_ thought, right there, is what does it. It’s like a punch to his gut, waking him up out of a lifelong stupor. He can almost taste the ambition he’s never had before now, seeping through his veins and lighting him up inside, making him feel alive, giving him a future…and, he gazes down at the front of his jeans...a hard-on.

+

Sitting on the shuttle, surrounded by fresh-faced cadets in their smart uniforms, he wonders if he’s made a mistake as everyone looks so much _younger_ than him, like they’re just out of High School. Just as doubt begins to creep in, his attention is taken by a commotion going on at the back of the cabin.

“I told you people I don't need a doctor. I _am_ a doctor!”

This, it turns out, is his introduction to Leonard McCoy, or, as the man babbles drunkenly on, _Bones_. The name suits him much better than Leonard; who the fuck calls their kids Leonard, these days?

The knot of doubt in his stomach eases as he shares a flask with his travel companion. There’s something comforting about him and it takes a minute for him to make the connection – the southern drawl, the complaining, the scowl – take away the obvious fact he’s drunk and he’s like a female Daisy. And with that thought, he’s found a comfort blanket to keep him sane through the years ahead, and he knows he and Bones are going to get along just fine.

When they arrive at the other end, Jim sticks to Bones like glue, through signing paperwork, their orientation, over to uniform stores… It’s not hard as they’re the only two who arrive unprepared and unexpected.

When it comes to assigning them rooms, the clerk looks up at the two of them standing there. “Do you two want to share?”

“No,” Bones says emphatically.

“Yes,” Jim says simultaneously and just as emphatically.

The woman looks at the two of them and raises an eyebrow.

“Why don’t you want to share with me?” Jim wants to know.

“Because I want a room of my own," McCoy scowls. "I’ve been through college once – I’m almost thirty, with a kid. I’m past all that sharing shit.”

The clerk’s face takes on a stony look. “I hate to break it to you Cadet…” she glances down at her paperwork for his name, “McCoy." She looks back at him, fixing him with a steely gaze. "All rooms are twins unless you have a cultural or religious reason for not sharing.”

“What kind of arcane system is that? Don’t you house cadets according to faculties?” Jim finds himself impressed at how his new friend isn't the least bit fazed by the intimidating clerk. McCoy points a finger at him. "He is not a doctor."

“Hello,” Jim says with a grin, waving a hand in front of McCoy’s face. “I’m right here.”

McCoy ignores him.

“I’m sorry, but we don’t practice that system here. We mix everyone in – the only separation we do is based on gender and species, and even those aren’t strictly enforced if friends want to share.”

“So why the—?” McCoy begins, his voice raised. He takes a deep breath, the throbbing vein at his temple subsiding as he purses his lips, as if doing so will keep the words inside that he obviously wants hurl at the clerk. “Why did you ask if we want to share if there isn't actually any choice?” he asks finally, in a more conciliatory tone.

“One or both of you may have had a preference not to share with the other, which we can honor, but you’ll still have to share with someone.”

“Better the devil you know, Bones,” Jim says with a wink.

McCoy turns a quizzical look on him. “What?”

Jim just grins and slaps him on his arm. “The quicker you sign on the dotted line, the quicker we can dump our stuff and I’ll take you out for a drink on me.”

That seems to be the clincher.

+

The second week in, and Jim thinks his dick’s going to fall off from overuse, or wear out, one of the two. If he thought he had the hots for Daisy, it was nothing like what he feels for Bones. The man is sex on legs, and those legs… So he ends up working out with Little Jimmy two and often three times a day.

But even with his own arrested emotional development (or so his psych eval says), he realizes Bones is still hurting too much from his divorce to entertain going out with someone else yet. Plus, he’s getting the idea this is not a guy who does one-night stands. He didn’t meet Jocelyn quite as early as Jim met Daisy, but they were dating by their mid-teens and got married when Bones completed his Bachelor degree. They didn’t reach the two point two target with kids, mostly because things were already going downhill after the first, Bones tells him, but he confirms to Jim they did have a picket fence.

Jim is sure they are soulmates – well that’s what Daisy would call their awesome friendship. They totally connect – it’s just he hasn’t yet succeeded in getting Bones to see him as a potential partner. That aside, they do everything together because, Bones admitted, most of the kids are too young and he has nothing in common with them; and also because he really is a lazy fuck and can’t be bothered to make the overtures with anyone else. And when Jim gets into fights, Bones always looks after him (after much complaining – but that’s okay – it feels familiar).

It’s about a month into the semester when Jim wonders if he’s bitten off more than he can chew. Cramming what is a very busy four-year course into three years means a ton of extra classes, with its attendant coursework; and evenings and weekends, he finds, are eaten up with him trying to keep up. It’s not that he’s failing – he’s acing the classes he takes – but to keep those grade averages up, he has to work fucking hard.

He and Bones end up ensuring they keep Saturday nights free to go out into town, usually to a bar. Even though he’s had no encouragement, Jim’s still holding out for Bones, so he never chats up any of the clientele, even though he regularly sees both men and women who catch his eye and make Little Jimmy perk up. Although, let’s face it, it doesn’t take much.

When the end of the first semester rolls around, he thinks it’ll be a reprieve from his workload; but no, once his course supervisor – one Captain Pike – learns Jim’s not going off-campus for the Holidays, he agrees with Jim to schedule in computer-based training classes and gives him recommended reading, project work and assignments to complete before the start of the next semester. It might be painful, but his determination to complete in three years drives him on.

The one good thing in all of it is that Bones doesn’t have anywhere to go either, so he’s around too, volunteering to help out both at the StarFleet Medical Center and at a downtown hospital. One thing they do together, though, is take Christmas Day off.

They’ve got a small fake tree in the corner, something Jim insisted on – Bones clearly couldn’t have cared less – and under it is a box for Bones, and a smaller one for Jim.

Jim had fairly traditional Christmases until he was in his early teens, if not with his mom, then with one or other set of grandparents, but things seemed to change after Sam ran away and he’d gotten older. His mom was rarely home at that time of year and any time she was away, Frank never bothered with a tree or a traditional Christmas lunch. Though he never said anything – not even to Daisy – he secretly mourned the passing of the earlier, happier era.

“Merry Christmas, Bones,” Jim says from the comfort of his bed, the clock registering just after nine. Bones grunts.

Jim’s long since figured out a daily schedule for getting up, which involves Bones having a shower first. Jim lies there for half an hour before he says anything.

“Any danger of you getting up today, Bones?”

“Fuck off.”

Jim grins. “Nice. Way to greet a friend on Christmas Day.”

Bones turns to face him, giving Jim the Evil Eye – the one he first saw on Bones when he gave it to the shuttle flight attendant – which is only just visible with the sheet covering half his face.

“You do realize the ferocity of your glare is diminished significantly by having a stripy (and therefore non-standard) flannelette sheet framing your pretty face.”

Bones scowls. “I’m not pretty, asshole.”

Jim, being a master strategist, had thought introducing comments like that would hopefully get Bones to realize that he was interested in being more than just friends. It’s not something he’s adept at since Bones is his first ‘love-interest’ since Daisy, but he’s seen how others do it and is pretty good at improvising. But the doctor never took them for the compliments they were, instead believing Jim was taking the piss.

“So, I wanna open my pressie.”

“It’s not much,” Bones says, flopping on his back.

“It’s the thought that counts.” Jim doesn’t entirely believe that but he wants to sound magnanimous.

Bones finally sits up and, pushing his hand under his teeshirt, scratches his belly. Jim would love to do that for him, and then let his hand slide down… As always, his thoughts stutter to a halt as he watches Bones, and his boxer-clad ass, disappear into the bathroom.

And this is why Bones gets to go first. Because he invariably comes out with a towel wrapped around his waist, water droplets falling from his hair and down his back and chest, looking sexy as hell.

Jim lies in his bed and tries to blank his mind before getting up and into the bathroom without Little Jimmy’s hard presence being discovered. Once inside, Jim quickly sees to him.

When they’re finally both dressed, Jim gets Bones’ gift and gives it to him. When his friend sees the bottle of Kentucky bourbon he actually full-on flushes.

“Fuck Jim, you didn’t need to be so extravagant.”

The comment puts Jim on alert as he wonders if maybe Bones wasn’t playing down what he’d bought him.

Even so, he unwraps the gift with undisguised glee.

“Socks.”

Bones runs his hand though his hair and has the good grace to look embarrassed. “I’m shit at buying gifts – I always left that sort of thing to Joce.”

“Socks,” Jim repeats, exasperated. They’re green and he doesn’t think they’ll go with anything in his wardrobe. “So, what did you buy Joce for Christmas?”

“I used to buy her perfume.”

Jim’s eyes narrow as he takes in the fact that after three months of living with him, Bones had never seen Jim, ever, wear green socks and wonders if Bones is very unobservant or just doesn’t put much stock into buying gifts. “A favorite of hers?”

“Uh…” he glances at the floor. “No. Something I liked. I thought she did but…”

Jim’s intrigued. “Yeah?” he encourages, as Bones begins to look a little chagrined.

“When we divorced she told me to take them – she didn’t want them. Eleven unopened bottles of _Lavender Beauty_.”

“ _Lavender_? Shit, man, even I know lavender’s for old ladies.”

“My mom’s always worn it. She wasn’t always old.”

“And you seriously didn’t notice she never wore it?”

Bones scowls. “I’m a doctor, not a perfumier,” he says, a little defensively.

Jim grins. “So, socks. In the interests of honesty, seeing as Joce never told you, these socks suck. Nice size, shame about the color. But thanks for getting them – I appreciate the gesture.”

Bones smiles ruefully at him. “Sorry kid.” He holds up the bottle of liquor. “Looks like I got the best end of the deal.”

Jim grins and lobs the socks at Bones’ head, scoring a bullseye. “Next year, make them black.”

+

The end of the first year seems to come around shockingly quickly and Jim wonders where the time went. Since enrolling with StarFleet, his contact with Daisy gradually decreased and after she and her parents moved back to Alabama, she seemed to take longer and longer to reply to his mails. In the last one from her, two months earlier, she hinted that she’d met someone and he was pleased for her. She had yet to reply to his last two messages and he doesn’t think he’ll be writing again.

It’s at the start of summer that Jim first hears the rumors that he and Bones are supposed to be in an exclusive relationship (he wishes). He doesn’t mention it to his friend as he’s honestly not sure how he’ll take it. He still hasn’t figured out if Bones is still hurting from his marriage, is totally straight or just currently asexual, but one thing he does know, Jim can’t even see first base with him, never mind hit it. The one thing he does know, though, is that Bones isn’t getting it anywhere else. Not unless he’s shacking up with someone at the med-center, but he thinks Bones is too professional to do that.

He decides to give Bones until the end of the next semester – because despite him being the king of deferred gratification, even he has his limit – and if he’s still not getting anywhere, he’ll give up and begin working his way through the rest of the campus. He’s pretty keen to get started, one way or another – there’s something deeply wrong with being twenty three and still a virgin.

Christmas brings him a pair of black socks (at least Bones remembered that much) and no sex. Not even a hint. He’s begun to be more obvious with Bones, flirting, wandering around their room naked (which usually has his friend yelling at him to _get some clothes on – we’re not at a naturist camp for fucksake_ ).

While Little Jimmy perks up in all sorts of sometimes random situations which he then has to take care of, the one big thing that’s offset all this – and has kept him sane – is hand-to-hand combat. StarFleet segregates on the basis of species, so Jim’s in an all-Human class. His martial arts background puts him in the intermediate level to start and even there, he manages to wipe the floor with some of the cadets, which he finds awesomely satisfying. He has to wear a tight jockstrap and baggy sweats to hide evidence of his hard-ons, and if anyone notices, no-one says anything.

In the end, he gets to beyond the Spring break before he decides enough is enough and time’s up for Bones – a guy can only wait around for so long. He loves Bones, though he’s never actually been _in_ love with him – he figured that would come with greater intimacy. So while he’s wasted a lot of time, he doesn’t feel _devastated_ by the lack of a satisfactory result where Bones is concerned, just disappointed and a big sad.

But it’s when he finally gives up on his quest that he finds out the _entire campus_ thinks he and Bones are an item, and trying to chat anyone up in a bar gets him no-where, other than being accused of being a douchebag for trying to be unfaithful.

Jim changes his tactic and goes for a local girl. The first time, one of the cadets at the bar tells her Jim’s taken while he’s in the john taking a leak, and he arrives back only to get his face slapped. The second time, he’s actually getting somewhere with a cute guy when Bones shows up saying he’s bored and Jim can’t go through with going off with some anonymous man and leaving his friend behind on his own. The third time, Jim finds out the chick he’s chatting up is trying to get her boyfriend jealous and said boyfriend reacts badly. Unfortunately, the guy doesn’t have the advantage of having attended StarFleet’s advanced hand-to-hand combat course (Jim got moved up a class when no-one wanted to spar with him any more) and Jim wipes the floor with him before leaving the bar and finding a dark alley to beat Little Jimmy into blissful submission.

After that, with his bad luck and heavy course load, he kind of gives up for a while. And he’s cool with that.

+

It’s at the start of the second semester of his final year at the Academy, in an advanced hand-to-hand combat class, that Jim’s romantic focus shifts elsewhere.

“For the next five weeks,” the instructor says, “we’re going to look at how to handle species from heavier-than-earth planets. We have three TAs for you to practice with, but before they arrive, I want to have a discussion on what the challenges will be for any beings, such as Humans, who are physically weaker.”

For the next ten minutes, they talk about the pros and cons of being weaker and stronger, and the issues of having to fight in higher and lower gravity. But when the door opens and the three TAs walk in, Jim’s brain stutters to a halt at the sight of the Vulcan. And Little Jimmy, of course, perks up.

It’s as though the whole world has just narrowed down to the gorgeous being who doesn’t walk, so much as effortlessly glides across the floor to stand beside the instructor. It’s a good ten seconds before Jim thinks to check his tongue isn’t hanging out – and to shut his mouth. He’s only peripherally aware that a Tellarite and a Rigellian have entered with the Vulcan.

He’s young, tall and slim, wearing loose-fitting pants and a belted jacket made of an almost satin-type material, its black color a contrast to the Vulcan’s pale face. When Jim’s caught staring, he glances down, flushing. So, five weeks, two sessions a week – twenty students, four instructors: he figures he’ll get time with the Vulcan pretty much every other lesson. A predatory smile curls his lips.

The session turns out to be agony and ecstasy rolled into one. The ecstasy is the moments when Jim is working with the Vulcan – who is introduced as Commander Spock – when they grapple and he gets pinned to the floor several times; the agony is both the want of more bodily contact and the physical pain of being thrown around by a being three times his strength. Working with the Tellarite and the Rigellian aren’t nearly as much fun. Jim’s aware Vulcans are touch-telepaths, but he also knows they are taught to carefully shield against the intrusion of others’ thoughts for reasons of privacy, so he’s not too concerned with Spock divining his interest in him in that way.

Jim doesn’t bother to go back to his dorm before he takes care of his hard-on, disappearing into a nearby bathroom for the deed. He leans against the side of the stall, his hand furiously working his shaft, as he closes his eyes and imagines what Spock looks like without his combat training gear, all hot pale skin and… he has no idea what Vulcans have in terms of a cock, so he goes with a Human one – but green because he at least knows Vulcan’s are green-blooded – picturing himself on his knees, sucking Spock off and eliciting delicious noises for his efforts. Climax, when it comes, explodes through him, his knees almost giving way with the force of it.

He needs to do some research.

“So, Vulcans.” Jim says that evening after two hours of fruitless investigation on the nets, running a search on their anatomy with specific focus on the reproductive system in the male of the species.

“What about them?” Bones asks from the couch without looking up from his PADD.

“Do you get training in treating them?” he asks, unwilling to go straight to the bit he wants to know.

McCoy looks up, a frown on his face. “Of course we do, idiot. They’re one of the founding species of the Federation.” He glances down at his PADD and then looks up, suspicion on his face. Jim realizes Bones knows him too well. “Why?”

“There’s not much about them on the nets…about Vulcan males, medically speaking.”

“Why would you…oh no. Just…no. God, I need some brain bleach.”

“What?” Jim asks, trying to look innocent.

“Don’t ‘what’ me. We’ve managed to go through almost an entire three years without you sharing details of your sex life with me. We don’t need to start now.”

_My sex life?_

__Jim’s unsure when Bones thinks he could have even _had_ a sex life. When he’s not studying – which between classes and homework is about ninety percent of his waking hours – he’s with Bones. __

 __“I just wondered—”

“Well, stop wondering. I’m not sharing anything with you. But I’ll tell you this much for free: Vulcans don’t do casual. So you can keep your dick in your pants and forget about it! Going after one is an exercise in futility.”

Jim stares at his own exercise in futility sitting right there, opposite him, on the couch. And pouts.

Jim has enough to go on from Bones to know it’s worth hacking into the Academy’s medical network and works his way up through the levels of access. He’s surprised how high he has to go to get what he wants, but there it is in all its glory, anatomical drawings of a Vulcan cock.

He stares at it in rapt fascination, noting it’s not that dissimilar to a Human cock after all, and wondering what the purpose of the double ridges are. The balls are smaller, the sac tighter and he imagines him rolling Spock’s around in his mouth. Since Bones is at SFMed all day, he frees his cock from his jeans, sits back in the chair and picturing Spock naked, goes for it.

+

Jim’s math proves pretty accurate, because it isn’t until the third session that he gets to work with Spock again. Having watched him closely with other trainees, Jim figures he has to use speed and agility (and maybe a few dirty tricks) to counterbalance Spock’s superior strength. This isn’t something new to him – he was doing it as a young teenager when defending himself against older bullies, or boys who tried to hit on Daisy.

As a result of this strategy, Jim manages to throw Spock twice before the Vulcan catches on and adjusts his technique. Even so, the victories are sweet and earn him – if not praise, because that isn’t something Vulcans do – then at least an acknowledgement that the maneuver was successful.

“Did you receive combat training prior to your arrival at the Academy, Cadet Kirk?” Spock asks him during a five minute break as they waited in line for one of the water fountains. It’s the first time the Vulcan’s addressed him other than in the context of the moves they’ve been practicing.

Jim feels inordinately pleased, because he hasn’t seen Spock start up a conversation with anyone else since he’s joined their sessions. “Yeah, I used to travel up to Iowa City for martial arts classes and learned judo, taekwondo, danzan-ryū and kick-boxing. I kind of blend them as I need to.”

“Indeed. I had noticed.”

And that was the end of the conversation, but it leaves Jim a little elated and emboldened. He was clearly way too subtle with Bones, so a more direct approach is in order. At the end of the session he approaches the Vulcan as they head to the changing rooms.

“So…er…want to go for a coffee after?”

“I do not drink coffee.”

“Uh…? What do you drink?”

Spock stops walking and turns to Jim. “I drink many things, Cadet. Why do you wish to know?”

Jim glances at the floor nervously before looking back up. Brown eyes stare at him from an expressionless face, one eyebrow slightly elevated, and it frustrates Jim that he has no way of knowing what’s going on inside the Vulcan’s head, his body language giving nothing away.

“I was thinking maybe we could get a drink after class. You know, to socialize.”

“I think not, Cadet,” Spock says and turning abruptly, walks away.

 _Well fuck.  
_  
He knows if Bones had been there, he’d have laughed at him and his pathetic effort. Just the thought makes him feel sullen, but not so much that he doesn’t duck into the bathroom to take care of Little Jimmy before his shower, thoughts of those cupid lips wrapped around his cock.

It’s after the sixth time he asks – because Jim is never a one to give up once he’s gotten the bit between his teeth – that he gets something close to an _emotional reaction_. Though not the kind he’d hoped for.

“Cadet, this is your sixth attempt to elicit a romantic rendezvous with me,” Spock says, his eyes slightly wider than usual, which in Vulcan terms, Jim thinks, is practically glaring, “and I have been consistent in my answer. It is illogical to persist. Indeed, I believe it was the Terran scientist, Einstein, who suggested that the definition of insanity is to repeat the same thing over and over, but expect different results.”

“You’re calling me insane?” Jim asks incredulously. Bones would probably – definitely, he amends – agree.

“It is merely a quote from which you may extrapolate whatever meaning you wish. However, for the record, my answer has not changed.”

The tenth – and last time, because these sessions are ending – that Jim asks, Spock’s mouth thins. “Are you aware, Cadet, that your behavior could be construed as sexual harassment?”

Jim’s frustration comes out. “I’m only asking you to go for a drink with me, not to fuck!”

“Yet, that is the outcome you are seeking.”

Jim feels himself flush and curses his pale skin because it probably shows. “Have you been reading my mind?” he asks angrily.

Spock’s eyebrows shoot up. “That would be highly unethical. Even the most psi-null being would be able to understand your motivation since you telegraph it so clearly.”

That shuts him up. What can he say? It’s true, though he doesn’t think he was being _that_ obvious. “Are you going to press charges?” he asks quietly, dreading the answer. All his hard work will go down the drain if this goes on his academic record.

“I am not. But let this be a warning to you. If I hear you have been harassing any cadets, I will not hesitate to ensure matters are dealt with in a most severe manner. StarFleet does not want sexual predators among its ranks.”

With that he walks off, leaving Jim standing in the corridor, stunned. The irony would make him laugh if he wasn’t so fucking angry. Spock called him a sexual predator, which was ridiculous! It wasn’t like he’d stepped over any bounds of behavior in asking for a date, like approaching Spock outside of class or trying to grope him. But what it now means, as far as he can see, is that he won’t be able to ask out any cadets on dates – now that he’s finally let go of holding out for Bones – for fear he could be reported.

He hates Spock, the cold-hearted bastard.

+

Six weeks before the end of the final semester, Jim is preparing to take the Kobayashi Maru a third time. Gaila’s been helping him with coding the subroutine he intends to use to overcome the fixed parameters of the test, though she’s got no idea what he’s going to do with it and he hopes she won’t kill him when she finds out. Meanwhile, the two of them having been heavily flirting. He’s being extra cautious though, even though an Orion calling him out for harassment is about as likely as Spock changing his mind and fucking him over his desk.

Finally, the night before the simulation and everything’s done, the two of them go for a drink off campus. The bar’s half empty, since most of the freshmen and juniors are cramming for finals. The seniors’ exams don’t start for another few weeks.

“I like you, Jim, you make me laugh!” she says putting an arm around his shoulder. “I bet you’re wicked in bed.”

Jim nearly chokes on his beer as he feels her grab hold of his cock through his jeans. Of course, that wakes Little Jimmy up and he has to shift to make room before his circulation’s cut off.

He grabs her hand before he has an accident in his jeans and she falls into him, kissing him hungrily. He hasn’t kissed anyone since Daisy – and fuck does Gaila know how to kiss – and within seconds he knows he’s close to coming.

 _Shit, not here_ , he thinks.

“Can we go find somewhere a bit more private?” he suggests, his eyebrows waggling.

“I’m not supposed to bring anyone back to my dorm – it pisses off my roommate. She made me promise.”

Jim knows for a fact that Bones is in their room – he’s been fretting about his exams for weeks and spends every available minute, it seems, revising.

“Is she there now?” Jim asks, his imagination already fucking Gaila on her narrow dorm bed.

“No, she’s in the long-range sensor lab.”

Jim gets his hopes up. “My roommate’s definitely at home – you think we could sneak in before she gets back?”

Gaila doesn’t answer, just grabbing his hand and hauling him off his seat.

“Give me a minute, I need to take a leak.”

He dives into the bar’s bathroom and quickly jerks off to take the edge off things – and humiliating as it is for him, he’s still fantasizing about Spock – and once done, joins Gaila at the exit.

“You didn’t need to do that – I could have shown you ways to hold it back.”

Embarrassment floods him. “How did you know?”

“Orions have an excellent sense of smell – we can smell sex,” she grins as she pulls him down the street.

Gaila’s dorm is blissfully free of her room-mate and Jim’s finally, finally makes it past first base with someone. They’re actually down to their underwear and he can’t take his eyes off her breasts. As they kiss, he tries to get the bra undone but never having done it before, he can’t figure out how the clasp works, and Gaila’s no help.

They pull back from a marathon kiss, panting.

“Ahh... Jim, I think I love you.”

 _Huh?_ This is supposed to be about sex – he didn’t think Orions even _did_ the love thing. “That's so weird.”

Gaila pulled out of his embrace. “Lights,” she commanded. “Did you just say ‘that is so _weird_ ’?”

Her tone’s incredulous and, fair point, it wasn’t the most romantic thing that could have come out of his mouth. But really. Orions and love?

“Yeah, I did but I...”

“You don't love me too?”

She _loves_ him? All they’ve done is pore over computer coding for the last few weeks – he hasn’t touched her until today. He was with Daisy _ten years_ and he never told her he loved her. Even thinking about saying it – even if he doesn’t mean it – fills him with mute horror.

Before he can respond, there’s a sound at the door and Gaila’s shoving him under the bed. That's when things start to go downhill.

+

The auditorium is packed. Bones is sitting with him near the front, his perpetual scowl gracing his face. Now would be a good time to get a reassuring smile from the bastard. He’s said his piece already, chewing him out for _two hours_ after they left the sim and calling him ‘all kinds of a fool’ and asking him, ‘what the fuck did you think you were doing busting your ass cramming four years’ study into three and then chucking it all down the drain’.

As it turns out, it looked as though Bones worst fears were realized when Jim got the message summoning him to an academic hearing to explain his conduct during the Kobayashi Maru simulator test.

His attention is brought back to the present as Admiral Barnett begins his address. “This session has been called to resolve a troubling matter. James T. Kirk, step forward.”

Jim walks up to the podium and waits.

“Cadet Kirk, evidence has been submitted to this council, suggesting that you violated the ethical code of conduct pursuant to Regulation One-Seven point three of the Starfleet Code. Is there anything you care to say before we begin, sir?”

He expected there to be some kind of repercussion to his alteration of the sim program – a chewing out by Pike or maybe even a demerit – but this is way beyond anything he envisioned. There’s no way Jim is going to let this go and if he goes down, it’ll be with all guns blazing. At the question, he decides he’s not going to let some anonymous computer programmer with a grudge stop him from graduating just because he found a way around his stupid fucking test.

“Yes, I believe I have the right to face my accuser directly,” he says calmly.

“Step forward, please. This is Commander Spock.” Jim feels like his been kicked in the gut and stares at the Vulcan, only vaguely aware that Barnett’s still talking. “He's one of our most distinguished graduates. He's programmed the Kobayashi Maru exam for the last four years. Commander?”

And then things _really_ go downhill from there.


	3. Chapter 3

“So fire him!”

Jim stops pacing and turns to his friend who’s sprawled on his couch. “I’m being _serious_ , Bones.”

“So am I.” Bones takes a sip of bourbon and, closing his eyes, clearly savors it.

Jim glares at him. “That isn’t the answer. You’re not being helpful.”

Bones rests the glass on his chest. “Life’s shitty at the top.”

Jim puts his hands on his hips, feeling like he’s only got a tenuous hold on his temper. “Meaning?”

“Meaning you’re the captain so deal with it. If you and your first officer won’t get along, then you need to find a replacement, and quick before the two of you get the rest of us killed.”

“ _Won’t?_ I’ve done everything I can to get that uptight asshole to work with me, up to and including getting his input on all orders, trying one-to-one meetings with him to talk things out and even trying to look at all situations _logically_. I’ve come to the conclusion it’s not about me, it’s about _him_.”

“Uh-huh.” Bones takes another sip.

“And it’s not that bad that we’re endangering the crew.”

“So it _isn’t_ that bad, then?”

“No…yes…no! Fuck it! Whose side are you on?” Jim asks, exasperated.

“Me?” Bones lifts his feet and puts them on the coffee table. “I’m on the side of the devil. You know, his advocate.” Bones silently cheers Jim with his glass and takes another sip.

Jim picks up his discarded drink and knocks it back in one go, relishing the burn as it slips down his throat, then plunks himself down on the couch next to Bones.

“This mission’s only been going two months and I’m ready to throw in the towel,” Jim says resignedly.

“Since when did Jim Kirk ever give up on something? What happened to ‘there’s no such thing as a no-win scenario’?”

Jim lets out a dramatic sigh. “He hates me, Bones. I don’t get why he even took the XO position.”

+

“Mr. Chekov, plot in a course for Starbase 5, warp factor four. Mr. Sulu, standby to break orbit from Maktra III as soon as the course is laid in.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Captain.”

 _What now?_ He grinds his teeth. Why is it, every single fucking command he makes, Spock has to pick holes in? And there’s no doubt in his mind that’s what the Vulcan’s about to do. It’s driving him batshit _crazy_.

He swings his chair around towards the science station. “Yes, Mr. Spock?” He’s amazed how even his voice sounds.

“We are not required to arrive at the Starbase until stardate 2258.317. Therefore we may proceed at warp three point five, arriving within the allotted time while making a sixteen point seven percent fuel saving.”

“Right.” He swings his chair back. “My mistake. Make that warp factor _three point five_ , Mr. Chekov.”

“Aye sir.”

Jim crosses his arms and stares unseeingly at the screen.

“It was not an error, Captain.”

Jim swings the chair around again. “No?”

He waits for the other shoe to drop.

“Negative. As a Human, you are incapable of making the complex calculations required to ascertain the correct warp speed without the assistance of a computer.”

And there it goes with a thump.

“Right. So it’s just down to my inferior brain.” Jim knows he’s being childish now, but he’s unable to help himself. The ‘Humans are inferior to Vulcans’ shit is a hand Spock seems to save for special occasions, generally throwing it out there when the maximum number of people can hear.

Spock is an asshole – of the highest magnitude – and Jim hates him. He’s also devastatingly attracted to him, which is all kinds of fucking _wrong_. And _that_ , more than all the bastard’s nit-picky comments, pisses him off. Big time.

“The biological make-up of the Human brain is notably—”

“Mr. Spock,” Jim interrupts because he really doesn’t want to listen to a long and no doubt boring lecture on the comparative physiological differences in Human and Vulcan brains. “I get the picture. Thank you.” He firmly swings his chair to face forward indicating, in addition to his words, that the discussion is over.

Fuck it. He can feel the tension on the bridge.

“Ready to break orbit on your mark Captain,” Sulu confirms.

“Do it,” he says tiredly, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Jim watches as below them, the large purple planet of Maktra III shifts and disappears from view as Sulu takes them out of the local star the system on impulse, passing close by one of the outer planets – a gas giant – on their way.

“We’ve cleared the system, Captain,” Sulu confirms.

“Ahead warp factor _three point five_ ,” Jim says with slight emphasis, because he’s still pissed. He knows his crew can do their jobs standing on their heads and don’t need every single thing to be stated, but protocol must be followed because _Spock says so_. God forbid he should just trust them to use their judgment.

He feels the subtle winding up of the warp engines as a slight vibration through his feet and he feels exhilarated for a moment that this is _his_ ship, and he is her captain. It’s something he’s felt every day since they left Earth and he hopes it never wears off.

“Confirm ve’re proceeding on course to Starbase 5, varp factor three point five, Keptin,” Chekov says.

And that’s likely to be it for the rest of the shift. Just like every other day when they’re on their way somewhere, they’ll sit there in silence, everyone manning their stations under Spock’s watchful eye while Jim sits in his seat with nothing to do most of the time but mundane (read: boring) paperwork or staring at the viewscreen.

“Captain.”

But no, Spock has other plans. He doesn’t bother turning his chair. “Yes, Mr. Spock,” he says tightly.

“If I might have a word…”

Jim slowly swings around. This is a new script. But then again, no doubt Spock’s got something – plenty – to say about the clusterfuck that was their last mission.

“Where?” he asks, wondering if Spock wants to have it out on the bridge.

“The bridge briefing room would be sufficient.”

“Right,” he says standing tiredly. Honestly, the job isn’t tiring, it’s just being on edge the whole time that takes it out of him. “Mr. Sulu, you have the conn.”

“Aye sir,” Sulu says as Spock stands, then waits for him precede him to the briefing room.

When the door closes behind them, Jim turns to Spock warily. “What is it?” He would ask ‘what did I do wrong this time’ – which he knows would sound petulant, but Spock brings out the worst in him – but he knows he didn’t follow protocol on the mission and that’s undoubtedly what this is going to be about.

“Beaming down into a potentially hostile situation is against regulation twenty seven, sub-section one which states—”

“That in the event of said potentially hostile situation, the captain must remain on board the ship and oversee her safety and the safety of her crew.”

Spock’s eyebrow wings up.

“Don’t look at me like that – it’s fucking insulting,” Jim says angrily. “I do _know_ the regulations, even if I don’t always follow them to the letter. But they can’t be more than a guide in some of the unknown and untried situations we face while on deep-space missions.”

“They are not open to interpretation, Captain. It would be the height of arrogance to believe you are the first commander to encounter unexpected or unusual circumstances while on a mission, yet there are no reports that other captains have frequently and casually broken the rules they, like you, swore an oath to abide by.”

“I did what I had to do,” Jim responds, his voice rising. “I had no choice.”

“You could have been harmed.”

“Like you care,” Jim says before he can filter his automatic thought.

“It is not a matter of caring. This ship and her crew need their captain, yet you flouted the rules and deliberately placed yourself in danger.”

“And what would have happened if I hadn’t beamed down when I did?”

“That is not the point, Captain.”

“Yes it is the fucking point, mister!” Jim yells, his temper snapping as he takes a step closer to the infuriating Vulcan, all his weeks of frustration and anger finally surfacing. “If I hadn’t beamed down and made nice with the locals, two of our landing party would be dead.”

“Nevertheless—”

“Did you hear me, Commander?” Jim says now crowding the Vulcan. “Petersen and Ling wouldn’t be resting in their quarters now and I’d be spending this afternoon writing letters of condolence to their families over a loss I could have, _and did,_ prevent. The Maktrans were ready to kill them – would have done, if I hadn’t intervened.”

“Be that as it may—”

“No, Spock!” Jim says pushing himself right into Spock’s face – they’re the same height so it’s easy to do. “There are no ifs or buts—”

“There was no certainty of the outcome when you transported down,” Spock interrupts. “Another officer could have gone in your stead.”

“It was a gamble that paid off – my actions saved the lives of two of my crew. I don’t care if I have to justify what I did to StarFleet, I stand by my decision and I’m still here and so are they, which proves _it was the right thing to do_.”

He’s so close, he can feel Spock’s breath gusting across his face.

“Step back, Captain,” Spock says dangerously.

Jim narrows his eyes. He hasn’t had a good fight since…that time Spock knocked him around the bridge and tried to choke the daylights out of him. “Make me,” he says, quietly.

Spock holds his gaze and Jim can see something in those dark eyes, though he doesn’t know what. “I respectfully request, _sir_ , that you step away.”

Jim’s well aware it would have been easy for Spock to step back, but the Vulcan’s clearly not for backing down, and neither is he.

After what seems like forever to Jim, but is probably less than a minute, Spock’s mouth firms into a thin line as he finally steps back. Jim guesses that forced capitulation doesn’t come naturally to him and his mouth curls up provocatively as he takes another step forward, adrenaline pumping through his system, his cock, rock-hard. Spock reverses one more step but his back is now against the bulkhead and he has no-where to go.

Jim moves up to him, but doesn’t stop. Instead he winds his hand around the back of the Vulcan’s head and pulls, smashing their mouths together, wanting to kiss that sneer right off of his arrogant face.

He expects to be thrown across the room, but it doesn’t happen. Instead, Spock grabs him by both arms hard enough to leave bruises and holds him there, kissing him back, fiercely. It’s nothing like the kisses he shared with Daisy or more recently with Gaila – it’s all lips, tongue and teeth, Spock like a marauder plundering his mouth, Jim’s own tongue battling just as hard for supremacy. Even in this, they’re fighting.

He moves his leg between Spock’s thighs and finds him already hard. The change in position brings more of their bodies into contact and the heat pouring off Spock brings him out into a sweat.

A part of Jim feels exhilarated that he’s the cause of such loss of control and can break that calm façade, that despite all the enmity that’s between them, Spock’s responding to him, wants him as much as he wants Spock.

Their mouths are still locked together, kissing frantically, he squeezes his hand between their tightly pressed bodies to undo the fastening to Spock’s trousers. He needs to get his hand around the cock he’s fantasized about for months. Shaking from a hormone overload, he feels Spock’s hands over his own, helping him with the fastening, then deftly moving to open Jim’s.

Jim gets to his prize first, sliding into Spock’s briefs. For the first time in his life he’s holding another man’s cock and he feels triumphant, euphoric. A heady musk assaults him and inflames him, sending tendrils of fire through his veins.

Instinct takes over and he starts to work the rigid shaft – silk over durasteel – squeezing his fist tightly. Then Spock’s inside his pants and the moment he takes hold of Jim’s cock – the first person ever to touch him intimately – he explodes, orgasm ripping through him in almost painful, pulsing waves as he gasps into Spock’s mouth. He needs to bring Spock down and keeps the momentum going on the Vulcan. Seconds later, he feels streams of wetness flowing over his hand as the Vulcan groans and sags against him.

The coupling, Jim realizes, was brutal and savage, their lust almost feral in its intensity, an instinctive drive devoid of any positive emotion.

Jim staggers backwards as rationality finally asserts itself. He stares at Spock in disbelief at what’s just taken place between them as the Vulcan calmly tucks himself away and straightens his hair and uniform.

Mortified, Jim turns his back on Spock, adrenaline overload and shock leaving him shaking so hard he has to lean on the briefing table for support. With the back of the hand not covered in come, he wipes blood from his mouth.

“If you have nothing further, Captain…”

“Dismissed,” Jim says, his voice hoarse. A moment later, he hears Spock leave. _Well, that was awkward_.

So ends Jim’s first ever sexual encounter.

+

Jim goes straight from the briefing room to his quarters where he sends a message to Spock informing him he intends to stay there for the remainder of his shift, writing the report for their last mission and catching up with other paperwork. He gets an ‘acknowledged captain’ note in response.

What he actually does is strip off his soiled clothes, showers and after putting on a clean uniform, sits on his couch to brood.

The words swirling around his head revolve mainly around _‘what the fuck?’_ and he honestly has no idea what happened. He _never_ intended to make a move on Spock, nor had any idea that the Vulcan secretly harbored a mutual attraction. At least, he thinks he does, but it’s hard to tell with a being who shows no sign of emotions – though he’s pretty certain violent sexual encounters as a means for excising extreme frustration is not the norm among Vulcans.

He knows fighting, for him, involves a sexual component – that it’s always been his way of releasing pent-up sexual energy – and when combined with a strong attraction, such as he has for Spock, always had the potential to lead to what just happened.

He still has no real idea why Spock went along with it, though, as he’s pretty sure the Vulcan isn’t as fucked-up as he is. For a start, he’s fairly certain Spock’s no virgin if what he witnessed between him and Uhura in the transporter room is any indication, though he concedes they may never have taken it further than that. Which leads him to wondering what’s going on with them and did Spock just cheat on his girlfriend?

He’s never been into overthinking anything. Sitting here trying to figure out why the encounter happened is just going to give him a headache since he has so few answers, and trying to second-guess Spock is next to impossible.

His only concern is what will happen next time they meet. What he ought to do is call Spock to his cabin, or even meet at a neutral place to discuss it, but he shies away from the idea, finding himself unwilling to confront his first officer.

He also thinks about talking to Bones, but his friend has never been much help where he and Spock are concerned and he still remembers his friend’s negative reaction to his question about Vulcan anatomy and the thought he might be attracted to one. Now Bones has met the only Vulcan in StarFleet if he figured out Spock was the one he was lusting after, he’s never mentioned it.

So in the end, Jim decides to do what he always does when confronted by confusing behavior or emotions: he ignores it.

Once he’s made the decision, it clears his head and he’s able to complete the mission report by early evening. He’s temporarily pissed when he reads Spock’s version of events and isn’t surprised when he gets a message from Pike to schedule a briefing with him over the matter.

The one thing that has changed is he now has some major new fantasy material. That night, he almost wears his cock out making full use of his new memories and falls asleep happy and replete.

The next morning dawns with a sense of trepidation, and as he heads towards the bridge, he wonders how Spock is going to be.

“Good morning, Captain,” the Vulcan says, vacating the captain’s chair as he always does when Jim arrives on the bridge.

Instant hard on.

Well, that’s fucking inconvenient.

He quickly slips into his chair and folds his hands casually over his lap. “Morning, Mr. Spock,” he responds. “Status report.”

“Our ETA at Starbase 5 remains unaltered,” the first officer begins as Spock moves to his customary place beside his seat. “However at 03:24 the _USS_ _Cochrane_ sent out a general notice to all ships in, or approaching, sector 562 reporting that an ion storm they were tracking had increased in magnitude to Grade 2. Since our heading would have intercepted the storm, I instituted a change of course and adjusted our velocity to compensate.”

Jim is biting his tongue to prevent his annoyance slipping, but feels he needs to say something.

“Why wasn’t I informed at the time, Mr. Spock?” _Rather than you going ahead and making the decision for me._ He doesn’t say it but the words still hang in the air between them. It’s far from the first time Jim’s arrived on the bridge to find his orders altered or even countermanded by Spock without being notified beforehand.

“It would be illogical to disturb your rest when the decision required was not critical. A note was made in the shift log which you are copied in on.”

How Spock manages to sound supercilious without altering his tone, Jim isn’t sure, but it inevitably gets to him. And the shift log? He usually checks it once on the bridge, which Spock is aware of.

“Illogical, Mr. Spock? How so? I’m the captain of this ship.” _Last time I looked, you arrogant bastard._

“As a Human you require more sleep than I do. Therefore it is logical that the officer of the watch contact me during your hours of sleep when the matter is not an emergency.”

So Spock went ahead and made that an order for all senior staff on Gamma watch. _Don’t call the captain, call me._ The fact Spock hadn’t even bothered to tell him really pisses him off. This annoyance, unfortunately, hasn’t done anything to diminish his hard-on.

“Regardless of my inferior physiology and your apparent best intentions, you had no right to countermand the chain of command without me signing off on that order. It’s a breach of protocol and you know it! From now on, I want to be the first to be informed if anything requires a command decision. If whatever the problem is suddenly escalates, it means I’m already awake and ready to deal with it.”

“Very well, Captain.” Spock isn’t looking him in the eye, but at some place over his left shoulder, which is a sign he’s got to him. Good.

“I take it you’ll be monitoring the storm using long-range sensors to make sure we steer well clear of it.”

At this, Spock does look directly at him, his eyebrow raised. “Yes sir,” he replies.

 _Of course_ , is the silent response. It’s a matter of routine procedure, but Jim gets a bit of pleasure for once telling his first officer how to do his job, instead of the other way around, and hopes Spock finds it as intensely annoying as Jim does.

“Anything else to report?” Jim smiles – though not out of friendliness, but more self-satisfaction.

“Yes sir. Communications reports a hail for assistance was received from a commercial ship – the _Honeysuckle_ – at 05:12 and was answered by a vessel from the same fleet – the _Dandelion_ – which was in the vicinity. After confirming they were able to assist, no further action was taken.”

“Cute names,” Jim comments absentmindedly.

Throughout the interchange, he watches Spock with slightly more focus than usual, looking for something…anything, that could act as an acknowledgement that the encounter yesterday happened, but there’s nothing.

Meanwhile, he’s all too aware of the Vulcan’s proximity, and subtly inhaling, can just about get that scent that he associates with Spock. He doesn’t know why he’s doing it because it’s really not helping Little Jimmy’s condition.

“May I also remind you, sir, that you have a departmental heads meeting scheduled for 11:00 in Briefing Room 3.”

The reminder isn’t necessary – this meeting occurs every Monday and Friday and there’s nothing wrong with Jim’s memory. Therefore it’s more than likely Spock’s way of getting back at him. Tit for tat.

“Thank you,” Jim nods, letting it go as Spock walks over to his station, apparently as if yesterday never happened.

“Morning everyone,” he says sitting back and covering his lap with a handy PADD; and so the day begins.

+

“I don’t care what the rule book says, if Scotty thinks he can make an improvement in performance, then I trust him to do it without having to put in a request in triplicate.”

“You exaggerate,” Spock counters and Jim can almost feel his department heads turning to watch him then Spock as though they were at a tennis match. “There is a single request form. Following procedure is logical – you have no way of knowing if this request has been made in the past and has caused subsequent damage to the propulsion system.”

“Ah well,” Scott pipes up, “I did run a check on all requests on ships fitted with FlexCorps engines, Mr. Spock, and none have been filed. Not even remotely like it.”

Jim beams at Scotty. “See, I knew you’d done your homework.”

“Surely you are aware, Captain, that if this is an untested modification, that is all the more reason for us to proceed with caution and follow standard operational procedures.”

The thing is, Jim knows Spock is right, but he’s feeling particularly belligerent, almost deliberately provocative. “My decision stands, Commander. Scotty, go ahead and keep us updated on progress. Right,” he glances down at his PADD to the next agenda item. “So, facilities want to carry out an evacuation drill…”

The meeting goes much as usual with Spock spending more time telling him what he’s doing wrong than assisting with his burden of command. He can honestly see no discernable change to before yesterday’s events – neither a warming up nor a cooling down.

It’s almost an anticlimax that it turns out to be the same old, same old.

+

Pike slaps his hand about breaking with correct protocol with the Maktrans, but doesn’t make a big deal of it, and Jim feels vindicated in his actions.

He watches Spock more closely, trying to figure out what kind of relationship he has with Uhura. His first officer doesn’t socialize with anyone but her, and they can often be seen sitting together at lunch and dinner. But he’s not picked up even the remotest signal that there’s anything more between them than colleagues. Not that he did in the lead up to the _Narada_ battle – well, not until the two of them were playing tonsil hockey on the transporter pad.

Jim soon begins to regret his decision to be woken at night when decisions need to be made – he had no idea how often it happened and he’s beginning to feel sleep-deprived as he can’t always easily get back to sleep. Not only that, but true to his order: _I want to be the first to be informed if anything requires a command decision,_ Spock is now making sure everything is passed by him first and he had _no idea_ how busy Spock was, dealing with the day to day minutiae of running a starship. No idea until his inbox starts to fill up with requisition requests, transfer requests, requests from HoD for promotions of crew, or to recognize individuals for outstanding work, budget requests, schedule change requests, leave requests, requests, requests, requests. And don’t get him started on all the reports Spock apparently signed off which now go his way…

So, that isn’t the greatest order he’s made but he’s damned if he’s going to back down from it and lose face in front of Spock. So, he’s set aside two hours every evening to plow through everything he doesn’t get done while on shift, and manages, barely, to keep on top of it all.

Meanwhile, despite his irritation factor increasing when it comes to Spock, Little Jimmy it seems, is far less discerning, having apparently decided to imprint himself on the Vulcan. As a result, Jim finds himself getting hard-ons whenever Spock comes near him which, it seems, is way too fucking frequently – he’s apparently never noticed before. He spends every morning and evening, and sometimes lunchtimes too, dealing with his new-found priapism, in the hope he won’t pop up inconveniently during shift, all the while holding out hope that the general ‘Spock Effect’ will wear off soon – before he wears his cock out.

The trouble is, he’s got close to an eidetic memory, and he only has to close his eyes and it’s almost as if here’s there again, able to relive the entire memory of that encounter. And it’s not just remembering the look of a debauched Spock, but every touch and sound, the musky aroma and the taste of his mouth, too.

The following two missions go well, ferrying diplomats to a planet that’s in danger of being consumed by a civil war while the _Enterprise_ remains in orbit until a ceasefire is brokered – all they’re there to do is observe and keep the peace. Then drop off medical supplies at an Earth colony. 

Spock is still driving him insane, but there’s been no further _close encounters_ which Jim feels both grateful and disappointed about.

Then comes the mission to Axa Prime.

On paper, it’s a fairly straightforward assignment. Pick up a negotiating team and take them to go renegotiate a dirdium mining contract on behalf of the Federation. The Axans have been stalling for reasons known only to them (Intel says they’ve got no indication any rival parties are potentially in the picture), and the deadline is looming. The first issue is that the team never materialized – none of them made it to Starbase 33 for the pick-up due to fact that the ship they were on from Earth had to divert to assist with an Andorian shingles pandemic on Elba II that was threatening the lives of hundreds of thousands.

“Sorry Jim,” Pike says, looking contrite. “You’re on your own on this one. You need to be at Axa by 2258.347 to meet the negotiation deadline.”

“I’m not trained – what if I fuck it up!” Jim whined.

The Admiral sits up and glares at him. “That’s not an option, Captain. We badly need this diridium. Get Spock to help you – I want him down there with you.”

Pike must have seen something in his facial expression and Jim curses inwardly.

His eyes narrow. “How are you two getting on now?”

Jim had confessed to their having gotten off to a rocky start, but hasn’t given Pike any updates since. “Uh…we’re managing. You know. It takes a while to bed down and get to know each other.”

“You do know that even though you’re eighteen parsecs away, Jim, I can smell bullshit from this distance. I don’t want to know what the problems are, just sort them out before you get there. We can’t lose this contract. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes sir,” Jim says dejectedly.

Bones is no help.

“I have my own issues with that walking computer. What makes you think I can help you?”

“ _Booooones._ ” Jim looks at his friend imploringly.

Bones rolls his eyes. “Didn’t you say the old geezer had an epic friendship with the other you?”

“Yes – why?”

“Well, stopping cluttering up my sickbay and go figure it the fuck out.”

Yeah, Bones is never going to be the turn-to guy for relationship advice.

In the end, Jim does what he always does when it comes to navigating the mire of interpersonal relationships. Which is to say he does nothing more than burying his head in the sand and hoping it’ll go away.

As Axa Prime draws near, Jim holes himself up in his cabin after every shift either in conference calls with the negotiation team who are now in orbit over Elba II with nothing to do but kick their heels, or doing background reading. He needs to find out as much as he can about the assignment and what’s expected of him, and to glean anything he can about advanced negotiation skills. At least he’ll be able to use his knowledge of tactics and strategy in the negotiation process.

The day before arrival, he holds a mission briefing and can somehow tell Spock is surprised by how prepared he is. That, alone, pisses him off and he’s barely gotten started on the briefing. So what? Did Spock think he was going to go into this and improvise?

“You sure two security are enough?” Bones asks after Jim’s finished with the main briefing.

“While they’re not a Fed member, they’re not hostile either. I don’t want to go in looking heavy-handed – we’re there to negotiate, not coerce.”

Silence from Spock beside him tells him the Vulcan is in agreement, which should be a cause for celebration as it doesn’t often happen.

“Spock?” Bones pushes and Jim throws the doctor a dirty look at his attempt to pitch the Vulcan against him.

“I concur with the captain, Doctor. A strong security presence could be interpreted as a lack of trust, or an act of intimidation.”

A smile lights up Jim’s face at the scowl on the doctor’s.

“Well, you could at least insist on returning to the _Enterprise_ every evening,” McCoy pushes.

“The President’s offering her hospitality, and from the meetings I’ve had with the negotiation team I gather this is a cultural thing. Turning her down would be close to an insult.”

“I agree, sir,” Uhura speaks up. “It’s very important in Axan culture to show deference and generosity to their guests. Not accepting it would be a sign they haven’t done enough for you and would cause the President to lose face in the eyes of her people.”

“You have spoken to the negotiating team?” Spock asks, his elevated eyebrows showing how taken aback he is.

“Several times,” Jim says smugly. “I wanted to make sure I got it right.”

“You did not think it would be pertinent to include me in those meetings?”

A hush falls in the briefing room and Jim feels himself flush. It honestly never occurred to him – he’s the one who’ll be leading the negotiating.

“Uh…no?” He’s now feeling stupid. But honestly, if Spock thought this was important, he should have brought it up and arranged a meeting to discuss the mission and how best to approach it.

“I see. Then I request you forward the logs of the meetings to me so that I am fully versed in what was discussed and agreed upon.”

“Right, I’ll do that. Er…is there anything else?” When no-one responds, he adds, “Dismissed.”

Bones hangs back after everyone’s gone. “You’re an idiot,” he says, and then leaves before Jim can formulate a reply.

A part of him wants to pin this blunder on the negotiating team who never once suggested Spock be there, but he knows he’s fully accountable for it. In wanting to get one-up on his annoying first officer, he deliberately never told him about the conference calls. This rivalry between them, he is beginning to realize, is affecting his ability to command effectively.

+

The two security detail – Amos and Gurjit – who have been assigned to Jim and Spock on this mission, check their weapons and communicators a last time.

Bones is slightly nervous, Jim can see, and he hovers near the transport pad as the away team prepares to transport down. He’s warmed by this as it’s a sign of his friend’s caring. He may never tell Jim he loves him, but he shows it, often gruffly, in different ways.

“There is no need for you to be here, doctor,” Spock says when he enters the room. “The transporter is both well-tested and reliable.” Bones enmity for transporters is as well-known as his hatred of shuttles and as a result, he’s on hand whenever Jim beams down ‘in case that goddamn machine scrambles your molecules for good’. That Jim’s pointed out he’d be beyond saving if that happened has never apparently deterred the doctor from being there. Up until now, Spock’s generally ignored him.

“Damnit, I’m not here because of that,” he scowls.

“Then why are you here?” Spock asks.

Jim can see they’re brewing for a fight and knows better than to get involved unless it really escalates.

“I’m here to see Jim off and you know it, you—”

“Bones!” Jim cuts in before the epithets fly, a warning look on his face. “Spock,” he says, turning to the first officer, “there’s no regulation saying the CMO can’t see the captain off. Leave him alone.”

“Be careful, Jim. I’ve got a bad feeling about this mission.”

Jim grins. “You have a bad feeling every time I beam down.”

“Yeah, and look how often you’ve had to come to sickbay for treatment right after.”

“I’ll be fine.” He turns to Scotty. “Ready?”

“Aye sir.”

When they materialize, they’re greeted by President Esh’hari and her senior advisors. The beings are Humanoid with simian qualities – furred with a tail – and wear highly colored cloths wrapped around them in something between a sari and a toga. After initial greetings, they’re led to a ceremonial dinner with Amos and Gurjit in tow.

Jim learned the Axans place great store in bargaining and what could have been done in a day, takes far longer. This isn’t helped by the fact that two hours in the middle of the day, every day, is set aside by the Axans for personal time, prayer and meditation, which eats into the negotiation schedule. The first day, the Axan Cultural Minister, Baralek, shows them the palace peace garden and the second, he takes them on a tour of an art exhibition that details the planet’s history.

It’s on the third day that things head south.

Jim is shattered – both from weeks of sleep deprivation on the ship between all his paperwork and the frequent calls through the night for his attention, and from nerves about this mission. Pike made it clear he has to be successful. When Baralek invites them to view their natural history museum, he decides to take a rain-check. Spock’s eyes, on the other hand, positively light up at the prospect and Jim, in his state of fatigue, can think of nothing he wants to do less. So he tells Baralek he’s going to meditate.

“Please, Captain, it is a truly wondrous exhibition,” Baralek pushes and Jim wonders if he’s breaking some cultural rule by not accepting. He can’t imagine he is, as the period is specifically personal down-time.

“Thank you – I know Commander Spock will enjoy—” he gets a look from Spock, “er—will find it very interesting, as he is also my Science Officer.”

“What can I do to persuade you?” Baralek asks again.

Because he’s tired, his patience is short. As if Spock can tell this, he jumps in. “Honorable Baralek, I am content to be shown the exhibit without the presence of my captain. I believe he will benefit from his meditation.”

The pause is infinitesimal, but Jim picks it up. “I definitely will,” he adds as emphasis.

“Very well, follow me Commander.”

Jim watches as they, plus Ensign Amos, walk away, and that is the last Jim sees of Spock for four frantic days.

While he catches up on much-needed sleep – and he’s not sure how that works, because he can’t seem to sleep at night – Amos is killed and Spock abducted. It takes two days and a lot of pressure from Jim before President Esh’hari admits that all is not sweetness and light in her domain. Evidently, not everyone wants an alliance with the Federation and having gotten no-where through lobbying, and then protests, those opposed – apparently led by Baralek – have taken to more extreme measures. It was the protests that had caused the Axans to delay the negotiations – so Pike had been right, there were no other external parties vying for the ore.

Meanwhile, they’re told Spock will be returned alive if they cease further negotiations.

“There’s got to be a way to find him,” Jim says, hovering behind Chekov who’s hunched over the scanners.

“It is wery difficult Keptin to find one Wulcan reading among five hundred million Axans dispersed over the entire face of the planet. We hef to do the scans one sector at a time and allow the computer to analyze all the incoming data.”

He knows they’re trying their best but he’s had a knot in his stomach since he was rudely awakened by Gurjit alerting him that Ensign Amos had failed to report in on time and that neither he, nor Spock, were answering their communicators. Jim immediately ordered an emergency beam-out for the two of them.

“Sair!” Chekov says, almost bouncing with excitement. “I tink I hef him!”

Jim hurries over to the science station. “Where?”

And there it is, seven thousand kilometers and a continent away from the capitol. Vulcan lifesigns.

“Jim, leave it to the experts,” Bones pleads as the captain checks his equipment for the third time. “It’s too risky for you to go.”

“I’m as well trained as any of this team,” Jim points out. “I’m sorry Bones, I’m going in.”

“Fine, but don’t expect me to patch you up when you come back in pieces!” Bones says angrily, crossing his arms over his chest.

This is the first time for Jim where the worlds of friend and colleague collide.

“Doctor!” Jim says warningly. “Your objection is noted.” He hates the way Bones glares at him, but he has to do this. Grabbing his friend by the arm, he takes him to a corner of the room. “There’s not going to be any fighting if this goes to plan, Bones. We’re just disabling their security net and as soon as it’s down, Scotty’ll beam Spock, and us, out of there, okay?”

Bones mouth is a thin line, but he slaps Jim on his back and leaves. That’s as close as his friend will ever get to a hug.

The team beams down to what looks like a warehouse district or industrial estate of large, mostly windowless buildings.

The retrieval isn’t quite to plan. Having identified the building Spock’s in, they manage to disable the security system. But something’s still preventing Spock’s transportation signal from being picked up and Jim realizes they’re going to have to go in. Calling for reinforcements, penthrane gas and masks, they manage to hook up it up to the air-conditioning system and at that point, things head south. The team find themselves under fire from two guards who leave the building just as they’re filling it with gas, and the sound alerts others who are in adjacent buildings.

Jim calls for reinforcements, with three more teams beamed around the surrounding area and closing in. Their rebels prove to be no match to the expertly trained StarFleet personnel, and donning masks, Jim and the original team make it into the building.

When they locate Spock, Jim feels a rush of relief. The Vulcan looks like he was meditating, because he’s lying on the floor of the room, his legs still crossed. It takes him and two others to carry him out of the building where they can safely beam up.

“Sleeping Beauty’s just woken up and is growling,” Bones tells Jim from sickbay half an hour after they get back.

Jim grins and passing the conn to Sulu, is halfway to sickbay before he wonders why he’s going. He reminds himself this is a professional visit, just to check all is well with his first officer.

“I am perfectly capable of resuming my duties, Doctor,” Jim hears Spock say as he approaches the main entrance to sickbay.

“When you get your medical degree, I’ll listen to your evaluation. Now lie back down or I’ll hypo you back to sleep.”

“Are you threatening—”

“Spock, welcome back to the land of the living!” Jim says, noticing the Vulcan’s looking even paler than he normally does.

“Your statement is illogical, Captain, given I was never deceased. I wish to return to duty. However—”

“Bones says no.”

“Well, that’s not entirely true,” Bones cuts in. “I just want to check Spock’s readings first – I have no idea what effect penthrane gas has on Vulcan physiology.”

“It has no discernable effect beyond mild nausea.”

“If you’d just lie down for five minutes, I could corroborate that.”

“Doctor—”

“Spock,” Jim cut in. “Just do as he says. And consider that a direct order.”

He gets something like a glare as Spock reclines and Bones looks triumphant.

“I’ll leave you two to it.”

President Esh’hari is clearly relieved Spock has been found alive and makes no comment about Jim’s decision to go in without consultation – he justifies that with the knowledge that with at least one rebel in a senior government position, he didn’t know who he could trust. The entire incident plays into their hand because Axan rules of hospitality state that the host should see to the safety of all guests in their home. Consequently, the president beams up to the ship with her team and wraps up negotiations within two hours and to the Federation’s benefit.

Jim has already sent a preliminary account of the mission and the outcome to StarFleet, copying in Pike, and is in the middle of writing the full report when he gets interrupted by someone at his door.

“Come.”

“Captain,” Spock says, stepping far enough into the cabin for the sensor to close the door.

Jim looks at him expectantly from his desk.

“I have read the preliminary report. Permission to speak freely, sir.”

Kirk sighs. He knows he could simply tell Spock no and dismiss him, but a perverse part of him wants an argument.

“Permission granted.”

“Once again, you broke regulation in order to lead the rescue team. I understand Dr. McCoy attempted to prevent you going.”

Jim could already feel a headache coming on. “He wasn’t stopping me because of regulations, Spock. And yes, it was a delicate operation—”

“Precisely the reason you should not have led it,” Spock interrupted.

Jim feels at a disadvantage sitting down; getting up, he moves around his desk. “Are you suggesting I wasn’t competent enough to carry out the rescue?”

“Once again, you placed yourself in an unnecessarily dangerous position,” Spock responds, not answering the question.

“I wasn’t going to send anyone in to a situation I wasn’t prepared to face myself.”

“That is illogical. You are not expendable.”

“Neither is anyone else on this ship!” Jim yells, his temper snapping. He feels remorse over the death of Ensign Amos – his first loss since the mission began, and he’s barely slept the last few days as they’ve frantically tried to find Spock while playing along with the rebels’ demands. What he doesn’t need right now is another fucking lecture from his prissy first officer on standard operational procedures.

“Nevertheless, StarFleet regards command personnel as having specialized skills that are not duplicated among the body of the crew and therefore they require greater protection in order to—”

“I don’t give a flying fuck what StarFleet thinks.” Jim yells, seeing red. Why can’t the bastard look past rules and regulations and see _people_. He steps right up to Spock in a classic move of his that has started more fights than he can remember. “Why should _I_ get greater protection? My life is no more or less valuable than anyone else on this ship.”

“Your opinion is irrelevant.”

Jim swings for Spock but the Vulcan’s reflexes are like lightening, catching his fist in a bruising grip, and suddenly he’s being pinned against the bulkhead by his glaring first officer.

Adrenaline spiking, Jim can feel the heat and the power of the Vulcan pressed up against him and it’s a heady and completely irresistible combination.

“Why do you persist in—” Spock’s question is cut off by Jim’s bruising kiss – it was fight or fuck and Jim knows which he’d prefer.

Spock kisses him back and like before, the physical fight ends but the battle continues as though each of them is trying to dominate the other. Jim’s not going to back down even though he knows Spock could throw him across the room like a ragdoll.

All the energy from Jim’s worry, anger, frustration and grief becomes channeled into life-affirming lust as he begins to drive himself against Spock’s hip while biting down on his tongue, eliciting a hiss. The Vulcan adjusts his stance, pressing his thigh between Jim’s legs, a move which serves to push their groins into closer contact so that Jim can feel Spock’s arousal, too.

Where Spock had held his fist, he half-releases the hand to intertwine his fingers with Jim’s while Jim’s other hand is busy with the front of Spock’s trousers wanting to get his hand around the hot, hard shaft, the memory of which he’s kept alive in his fantasies for weeks.

With more dexterity than he would have believed possible with one hand, he manages to get in, pushing his way past the waistband to Spock’s briefs to grip hot, swollen flesh. The Vulcan groans into his mouth, the sound wanton and animalistic, and Jim knows with utter certainty that whether Spock gets to his cock or not, he’s about to come.

Suddenly, his shaft’s wrapped in fiery heat and squeezed as contractions begin deep in his balls, and losing his rhythm, he shudders through a white hot eruption. Gasping into Spock’s mouth, he’s dimly aware of the Vulcan writhing, his slick shaft gripped in his tight fist and he begins to pump it in earnest. Somewhere along the line they break off the kiss and Spock buries his face in Jim’s neck, each ragged breath sending heat across his skin. Suddenly pain erupts as Spock bites down on his shoulder and comes, hips stuttering as Jim feels the warm pulses of come flow over his fingers.

Spock pulls away but Jim doesn’t want to let him go yet, doesn’t want this moment out of time to end so soon. So he holds on tight to the hand that’s been gripping his and hears Spock gasp.

“Release me,” he’s told in no uncertain terms.

He looks at Spock’s face and it’s as impenetrable as always, no sign that he gained any enjoyment from what just took place between them.

Reluctantly, he lets go and immediately Spock turns to adjust himself and Jim, suddenly feeling vulnerable, scrambles to do the same, wincing as he pushes his still-wet cock back inside his pants. That done, he surreptitiously licks his fingers to see how Spock tastes and it’s nothing like himself – there’s no salt back-taste, in fact it’s almost sweet.

By the time Spock turns back, he’s standing away from the wall, trying to look composed.

“Permission to leave, Captain…”

“Dismissed.”

Because, yeah, he isn’t about to start a conversation with Spock along the lines of ‘what the fuck was that all about?’ so he just stands there and watches him leave.

On the upside, he’s got more memories to play with for his fantasies.

+

Like the first time, the next day, neither of them behave as if anything ever happened. It’s kind of confusing because they’re both obviously a bit fucked up, but mostly it’s a relief, so he doesn’t question it.

The third time it happens is a month later after a clusterfuck of a mission where Jim ends up getting chased by something that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a dinosaur movie.

Spock and some of his department are carrying out a botanical survey and he beams down for a while just to stand on terra firma and feel the sun on his face. When they set off on the five year mission, it was one thing to know in theory that he’s not going to see sunshine or sky, or have a sense of day and night for sometimes weeks on end, but he didn’t count on how stir crazy it sends him, especially as he was raised in a state where the sky goes on forever.

There’s something about the planet that scrambles sensor readings, so they can’t provide 100% accuracy, and that’s presumably why they, and the ship which did the initial survey, miss the fact that it’s inhabited by very large, meat-eating reptiles. The predators, getting wind some tasty snacks are in the offing, gather on one side of a small hill.

The only reason Jim sees them is because he’s sitting on an even higher hill. Eyes closed, face turned up to the sun, he relishes the warmth and the fresh air – even though there’s not as much oxygen in it as he’d like. Taking in a deep breath, he slowly opens his eyes and sees… Spock at the foot of the hill, kneeling down looking at something on the ground, and fifty meters away over another hill, three large and unfriendly-looking beasts with bright green skin, waiting, poised for action.

It’s as if everything happens in slow motion. He knows shouting might set them off, so without taking his eyes off them, he pulls out his communicator.

The chirping of Spock’s communicator seems to set them off anyway and so Jim stands and yells, “Spock! Run!”

He sees Spock stand and look at him, then turn towards where he’s pointing and knows the moment the first of the beasts has gotten high enough up the hill for Spock to see it. The Vulcan starts to run, pulling out his phaser. Jim’s about to get his communicator out to call for emergency beam-up when one of the beasts, presumably having heard his shout, begins to lope towards him at a surprisingly fast pace, given its bulk. He breaks into a sprint, stumbles over a small protruding rock and drops the communicator. No time to pick it up, he keeps going, trying to figure out what to do – should he circle back to the survey team who have phasers? But what if he runs into the two chasing Spock?

He doesn’t have a phaser with him – and a part of his brain that’s not focused on survival can just imagine Spock chewing him out for his breach of regs. He didn’t think to bring it because all he was going to do was sit in the sun for half an hour and watch some of his crew pick flowers and catalogue them. Being chased by fucking scary monsters really wasn’t on his radar. .

He knows he can’t keep running, knows that it’s unlikely even the genius of Chekov would be able to get a lock onto him with all the interference, so he does a wide arc round to his right, skirting around the bottom of another hillock. Every so often, he looks over his shoulder and can see the beast is gradually gaining on him. What an ignominious end this could be.

His luck runs out when he comes around a bend and sees another of the green reptiles ahead of him. He veers abruptly to his right, heading up hill, but his legs are tired, his lungs heaving in the thinner-than-Earth air. They’re gaining on him, the nearest one only fifteen meters away he realizes as he glances again over his shoulder. It was the wrong thing to do as he trips and goes flying into the ground. With a roar behind him the beast rears up and…explodes. As bits of whatever it was rain down on him, the other falters and apparently decides his friend would make a better snack than the puny Human. Jim scrambles to his feet and as he reaches the brow, sees Spock with a fucking rocket launcher aimed at the second animal.

“Emergency beam-out, stat!”

As the transporter beam takes them, his last thought is that it’s the first time he’s ever heard Spock raise his voice.

In the transporter room, it’s chaos with the fifteen man survey team having arrived just ahead of him. He sees Spock stalk out the door and can’t believe he didn’t have something to say about his lack of armament. A moment later Bones approaches him, tricorder in hand, and that’s when he begins to shake.

“You dumbass fuckwit,” Bones says after jabbing a hypo at his neck. He knows his friend’s really upset when he gets double names like that.

“I don’t think you can call the captain that,” Jim says with a smirk as the tri-ox starts to work on him and his muscles begin to co-operate again.

“If the cap fits,” Bones mumbles and manhandles him out of the transporter room down the corridor to sickbay. “Now stay there for five minutes,” he says pushing Jim down on a biobed.

It’s another hour before Jim feels clean again, having been covered in the slimy entrails of whatever the fuck was chasing him – the Beasts of Bodmin, he’s christened them. He goes back on shift and knows he’s doomed when Spock doesn’t even glance up as he goes to his command chair. Ignoring him, he gets a PADD and starts to write up a report of what happened. Two hours later, it’s done and he glances up to see the shift has changed – he was so engrossed he didn’t notice.

What he doesn’t expect when he gets back to his quarters is his first officer lying in wait, ready to throw him against the wall as soon as the door slides shut. Apparently Spock deems a reprimand of his commanding officer is superfluous and cuts to the chase. Given their mouths are otherwise engaged, Jim’s not about to protest.

They start with the frottage, but then in a break from what he got the first two times, after Spock gets Jim’s cock out – and he somehow manages to hold on and not come the moment he feels the hot hand surround him – Spock kneels down and promptly takes him into his mouth. _Then_ he comes like a freight-train, the instant his cock’s engulfed in wet fire and the world whites out for a minute. When Jim comes to, he’s ready to reciprocate – the thought of sucking Spock off is almost enough to get him hard again – but finds that Spock’s already jerked off while kneeling doing him.

A minute later, he’s standing alone in his cabin, and would be wondering if it actually happened if there wasn’t a damp patch on the floor covering near his door, and his quarters didn’t reek of sex.

So, his first blow-job. He’s pissed he didn’t really get time to enjoy it. If this is going to be a habit, then he’s going to have to learn some kind of technique where he can last more than thirty fucking seconds.


	4. Chapter 4

Jim is lying on his back, feeling like he’s floating off the biobed – Bones has given him the good stuff. He feels kind of detached, his brain not firing on all cylinders. He knows he’s been operated on because Nurse Chapel told him so. Bones refuses to speak to him. He knows why. The last few missions since the ‘Beasts of Bodmin’, he’s taken ever increasing risks most of which have led to avoidable injuries. And each time, Bones has read him the riot act. While the doctor’s figured out that his reckless behavior has something to do with Spock, what he doesn’t know is that each of those missions resulted in some hot, angry wall-sex with his First. Jim knows he’s seriously fucked-up.

He closes his eyes and goes back to sleep.

When he wakes again, he has no idea how long he’s been out, or if it’s day or night. A minute later and Bones appears, his concerned face looking down at him.

“You—” Jim coughs, not getting any further, his throat completely parched.

“Sip on this,” Bones says, shoving a straw between his chapped lips.

The water feels like wet silk as it slips down.

“Steady – take too much and you’ll just throw it back up again and I’m not having you puking all over my floor.”

Jim lies back. “So, you talking to me now?” he asks with a smile.

“I nearly lost you, Jim.”

He can see that Bones isn’t joking. When he looks closer, he sees his eyes are red-lined, his face pale like he hasn’t slept.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t Jim…just…don’t.” Bones’ voice sounds hoarse. “What is it with you? Every assignment we’ve had you’ve broken regulation and you’ve gotten hurt. It’s like you’re goading Spock to get pissed with you – I don’t get it Jim. You need to sort yourself the fuck out, because maybe next time Spock won’t be around to meld with you to keep you alive long enough for me pull a goddamn miracle out of my ass, and we’ll all get to break in a new captain.”

Bones stomps off, heading out of sickbay – to get some sleep, Jim hopes.

Jim reflects back over the last mission to see what he could have done differently. Distracting the natives seemed like a good way to ensure the rest of the landing party got away – and that part of his hastily-compiled plan went well. He knew Spock would make sure he was okay. It’s just no-one expected them to have long-range bows that shot poison arrows. There were at least three of them in him as Spock frantically carried him – cradled in his arms – through the long undergrowth, away from the bedrock that interfered with the transporters. He knew they were poisoned as his blood turned to fire and unable to bear the pain, he finally he succumbed to the dark pull of unconsciousness.

Jim wakes up, unaware he fell asleep again. The lights are brighter and he can hear people talking through the open door to his bay. He feels more connected this time and can feel soreness in his chest and abdomen.

“He’s just woken up,” he hears Bones say. “Go in there.”

“There is no need—” Spock doesn’t get any further.

“I can and will make it a medical order, _Commander_.”

Then there’s silence and Jim imagines them having one of their staring contests. After at least half a minute – which even by their standards is pretty long, he thinks –Spock comes through the door.

Behind him Bones says, “I’m going to lock this door until you two _talk_ to each other, before whatever the fuck’s going on between you gets one of you killed.”

Jim licks his lips reflexively as Spock stands just inside the closed door.

“Captain.”

“Drink?” Jim croaks in response.

Spock strides over and, helping him sit up, brings the straw to his mouth.

Jim takes a few sips, then nods, and surprisingly gentle hands lower him back to the bed. He fiddles with the bed’s controls bringing the back up so he’s only partially reclined.

After two minutes of Spock staring raptly at the monitor above his head, Jim realizes he isn’t going to speak.

“Has Bones told you what he’s on his high-horse about?”

Spock raises an eyebrow at the idiom but for once doesn’t push Jim to explain it. “He believes you are attempting to seek attention from me by deliberately placing yourself in danger,” he answers, apparently understanding the idiom just fine. “He is convinced the only way that you will cease this self-destructive behavior is if we talk.”

For someone whose face can be so expressionless, it’s surprisingly clear to Jim that the idea of them having a heart to heart fills Spock with horror. He can totally empathize with that.

“He doesn’t know. About…you know.” Jim coughs again and reaches for his water, taking more sips.

“I see.”

They lapse into silence. Jim’s acutely uncomfortable and can only imagine that Spock’s feeling much the same – though he’d likely deny it to his dying day.

Jim takes a deep breath. “Shall I start?”

“Captain?”

“Bones thinks we should talk, and I know he’s right; it’s just I’d rather chew off my right arm than talk about…personal stuff, you know?”

“Indeed.”

Silence falls between them, Spock apparently waiting for Jim to speak, and Jim finding it really hard to talk about his issues. His mind goes over where to start and how to broach what he knows needs to be said.

“Sir?” Spock says after over a minute has elapsed.

“Yeah…uh… Well, I got command without working my way up through the ranks and learning the ropes as I went. So, a lot of the time, I’m winging it.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The courses and manuals and regulations and SOPs don’t cover everything, and when they don’t, I wing it. Or sometimes they aren’t appropriate.”

“So you wing it.”

Jim smiles for a moment, hearing the term coming from Spock. “Yeah, but you’ve never appreciated my…uh…creative approach.”

Spock tilts his head to one side. “I am uncertain what it is that you are attempting to convey.”

Jim bites the bullet, deciding to go for broke. “What I’m trying to say is I need your support, not your criticism.”

Spock’s eyebrows rise in obvious surprise. “I believed I was supporting you, Captain,” he says stiffly.

“Yeah, I know, but like you’re always pointing out – I’m Human and some of your forms of support don’t work well with me.”

“Such as…?”

“You being critical of me in front of my crew.”

“They are aware you are new to your post and are still learning.”

“Like I said, Human. When you’re constantly pointing out all my mistakes it undermines me, undermines my authority because even though intellectually they know I’m new, they want to believe I’m competent because their life is in my hands. Some of your comments have been borderline insubordination – and you must know it.”

Spock seems to take a minute to digest that. “I see,” he says eventually.

“I’m not a student in a theoretical position – I’m actually doing the job and the feedback and support you need to give me needs to recognize that fact. When you’re constantly nitpicking, telling me every single thing I’m doing wrong, I start to lose my self-confidence and then I find that things I know how to do, I start to doubt. So my entire performance starts to slip.”

“Yet you are doing an admirable job, Captain.”

Jim gapes at him. “Did you just compliment me?”

“I am merely stating fact. Overall, you are able to carry out eighty nine point seven percent of your role to an adequate standard. I have been attempting to assist you with the remaining ten point three percent.”

“I thought you hated me.”

Spock’s eyebrow rose. “I fail to understand how you might have come to that conclusion.”

“Because whenever you opened your mouth when I was around, it was usually to tell me what a shit captain I am.”

“I have never—”

“No, you’ve never said those exact words,” Jim cuts in, “but that's the message I’ve gotten from your attitude and behavior towards me.”

“Then you have inferred incorrectly.”

“How can I infer anything else when all I get from you is criticism?” Jim asks, exasperated. “How about the occasional comment for when I’ve gotten it right?”

“It is illogical to point out when you do your job correctly.”

“Don’t you at least know the _basic_ theories of Human motivation?”

“You require your ego to be stroked?”

“No goddamn it!” he shouts and then stops himself saying more, taking several deep breaths until he feels calmer. He decides to try a different tack. “Look, I know all the regulations and I know how things are _supposed_ to be done. But one of the reasons I joined was because Pike said Starfleet needed new leaders who don’t slavishly follow the rules, but turn them on their head if it gets results. That’s where you and me had our problem when we were fighting the _Narada_. You wanted to follow protocol and I didn’t.”

“Yet in flouting the regulations, you have frequently and unnecessarily put yourself in danger.”

“But in breaking those regs all those times, I effected positive outcomes that wouldn’t have happened otherwise – saving lives, turning disadvantaged meetings and negotiation into an advantaged ones, and well…I don’t need to quote them all. Besides, I haven’t gone along breaking regs left and right – only those times I thought the pros outweighed the cons, and pretty much every time, things ended up for the better.”

“Regardless, during the last twelve missions, you have been injured on nine occasions.

Jim winces but doesn’t say anything. He’s said his piece, and it’s Spock’s turn.

“This ship needs her captain. The rules were created to protect you from harm because you have a duty of care to your crew to keep them safe. Only in exceptional circumstances, such as our mission to Axa, should both the first officer and captain transport to a non-Federation planet.”

“I stand by what I always say – I’m not going to send anyone in where I’m not prepared to go. And half the situations we’ve been in, I had the unique skills or clout to turn it to our advantage.”

“It appears you would willingly put yourself in situations which are potentially deadly rather than order someone else,” Spock says, a note of incredulity to his voice.

Jim can’t look at Spock so he stares at the ceiling and swallows the lump that’s formed in his throat.

“I see,” Spock says eventually when it’s clear Jim isn’t going to say anything.

He doesn’t want Spock to get the wrong idea so he forces himself to speak, even though he’s deeply uncomfortable with the subject. “It’s not like I have a death-wish or anything,” he says, still staring at the ceiling. “That would have been picked up on psych evals pretty early on. It’s just…”

He doesn’t know how to say the next words, has never allowed himself to consciously acknowledge it, although it was a concept he intuitively understood.

“You place greater value on the lives of others than you do on your own,” Spock says into the silence. “While that may be considered commendable, it is not one that fits with your role as Captain.”

He knows it and is certain if the chips were down, he would be able to order someone to sacrifice their life if it saved the lives of others. But up to now, that hadn’t been put to the test. Jim’s almost squirming and idly wonders what kind of slow death he might put Bones through for forcing him into this.

“I believe I have a better understanding of you. However, there is more that puzzles me.”

Jim squirms more, knowing with Vulcan directness, what’s coming.

“On a number of occasions during meditation, I considered the sexual encounters we have shared.”

Yep, damn he can feel himself flushing.

“You have perceived a degree of antagonism from me that is not wholly without cause, though I am reluctant to admit it. I believe you are aware that I am attracted to you on a physical level – that has been the case since the first time I encountered you at the combat class. I was conflicted about this since I was in a relationship with Nyota at that time.”

 _Was_ , Jim thinks and wonders when it ended.

“You also appear to have the ability to undermine my control with very little effort – I found myself…angered…by your actions during the Kobayashi Maru which did not lessen during much of the battle with the _Narada_. Sending you to Delta Vega was an extreme action but I could not function adequately as long as you were on the ship. As you are aware, my tenuous hold was shattered after your return.”

Jim turns his head and looks at Spock, who seems to be gazing down at his hands folded in his lap. “I’m sorry – I hope you know I didn’t mean what I said. I just needed to…” He trails off, unsure how to put what he wants to say into words.

“I am aware,” Spock says into the silence. “However, I believed I had brought myself back under control when I made the decision to remain with the _Enterprise_ for her five year mission. It transpired that was not the case as evidenced by the somewhat aggressive sexual encounters we have shared. I have meditated at length upon this and have come to the conclusion that they were provoked by what I have come to understand was anxiety concerning your safety, together with the continued attraction I have for you. Your own provocation in those encounters has continued to elude me.”

Jim swallows. If Spock can bare all, then he can too – at least as far as he understands it.

“You drive me nuts, Spock. You knew I was attracted to you back at the academy but when you kept giving me the cool brush-off like you wouldn’t want to even share the air I breathe if you had a choice, all I wanted to do was put a dent in that Vulcan control.”

Jim picks at the fabric of the blanket, not wanting to look at Spock as he lays himself bare. What he is going to say next isn’t something he’s ever shared with anyone and he still doesn’t really understand that facet of himself, though he’s at least come to acknowledge it.

“I kinda discovered when I was in my early teens that I get sexually excited by fighting.”

Spock appears to wait to see if more is forthcoming but Jim remains silent, mainly because he’s dying of embarrassment.

“That, together with a previously stated attraction to me, would perhaps explain why you instigated a sexual element to our confrontations. I am curious – during the course of other sexual encounters you have had, did they also have an aggressive component?”

Jim doesn’t think it’s possible to get any more embarrassed but a new wave of heat suffuses him and he’s sure his face, neck and ears must be bright pink. “I haven't had any other sexual encounters,” he mumbles.

Jim can feel Spock staring at him, probably trying to gauge if that was an example of Human humor. Something in his demeanor must have told him it isn’t.

“You never had sexual relations prior to our mission to Maktra III?”

“Long story, but no. And no, I wasn’t holding myself out or anything; I didn’t mean it to be that way, it was just the way things happened. I know everyone assumed Bones and I were in a committed relationship.” He turns for the first time in a while and looks at Spock. “Pretty ironic, huh?”

“So you never…?”

“With Bones? No. I wanted it for a while, but I guess I just don’t do it for him.”

“You do it for me,” Spock says quietly.

“But what we have is pretty fucked up even by my standards.” Jim laughs, but it’s hollow. “I mean, you do realize that each time I put myself in danger, you rewarded me with sex, right?” He has a moment of insight. “It’s like classic operant conditioning.”

Spock closes his eyes momentarily. “I had not thought of it in that manner. However I do see the connection. Is that why you have become increasingly reckless during recent missions?”

“I guess so – it wasn’t something I was aware I was doing, but at the same time I was. Uh…it’s hard to explain.”

Spock nods in apparent understanding. “It is unfortunate that I have unintentionally encouraged such behavior. I should inform you that since our last mission, I am now in possession of facts that aid in understanding my attraction to you.”

Jim looks at Spock intently until the Vulcan looks up to capture his gaze.

“Go on,” he urges.

“You and I share an uncommon mental compatibility. Even with my shields fully reinforced as I believed them to be during combat training with you, there was sufficient skin to skin contact for my mind to recognize yours as _telan_ – there is no Standard equivalent. It implies more than a friend, less than a mate, and has a telepathic component to it. However, at the time I was not consciously aware of it. That only came to me later.”

Jim has a sudden insight. “I vaguely remember Bones saying something about you melding with me to keep me alive.”

“I apologize for the intrusion, but I had no choice. Your organs were failing and it was the only means I had at my disposal to keep your heart beating long enough to reach an area free of the rock that was disrupting the transporter signal.”

“Hey don’t be sorry – I’m grateful you kept me alive. But I’m sorry I’ve been behaving like a jerk.”

Spock’s lips twitched and it made Jim grin to see it. “I believe I owe you an apology for failing you as a first officer. My actions were not always driven by logic.”

Jim needs to ask the inevitable question but he’s afraid of the answer now that Spock seems to be back to his logical self. “So, what now?” He steels himself for the answer.

“While you were unconscious, following his operation on you, the doctor confided that his life expectancy has been severely diminished as a result of meeting you.”

 _Jim’ll be the death of me_ , he mentally translates, and smiles.

“It would appear I have it within my capacity to reverse his pessimistic prognosis,” Spock continues. Reaching out, he takes one of Jim’s hands in his, enveloping it in dry heat as their fingers twine.

Jim smiles. “How so?”

“Were I to visit sexual favors upon you on a more frequent basis, I believe between us, we can break your former conditioning…if you are amenable.”

A grin lights up Jim’s face. "I think I could get with that program!”

+

“Boooones! Bones, Bones, Bones.”  
The doctor stalks into his bay with a scowl on his face. “You’re bored, aren’t you?”

Jim grins at him. “How can you tell? But I feel better now you’re here.”

“I’m a doctor, not a playmate. I’ve got work to do – you’re not the only person on this ship in need of medical treatment you know.”

“Yeah, but I’m the only one who’s _Captain_.”

“Sorry – but I run an equal opportunity sickbay,” Bones smiles at Jim’s pout.

“When are you gonna let me out?”

“Tell you what, Jim, I’ll give you your freedom for your birthday.”

“Yeah?” He can start planning how he’s going to celebrate it with Spock.

While Jim’s got that to look forward to, it still means he gets to spend three, lousy, long and boring days in sickbay, though he at least has a steady stream of visitors from the bridge crew which help, who annoy Bones by cluttering up his sickbay, which just adds to Jim’s pleasure. He especially looks forward to Spock’s visits – particularly after they established on the first day that they both play chess and are of a similar standard, though their playing styles are entirely different and challenging to the other.

On the second day, Jim asks Spock about Uhura and learns that they broke it off when after the _Enterprise_ got back to Earth following the defeat of the _Narada_. Jim was glad they obviously remained close as Spock hasn’t really befriended anyone else – though Jim hopes he’ll be able to help encourage closer working ties between all his senior team, something that will be much easier to accomplish now that the two most senior officers were finally in accord.

On the third day, Bones finally releases him as promised, but only for light duties. He does it at the end of his shift and then accompanies Jim to his quarters where he makes himself comfortable. With Bones being so fucking crap at gift selection, they’ve never exchanged birthday presents. Had they been on Earth, they would have gone out to a bar and got hammered with Bones picking up the tab. Instead, because he’s on meds, he’s reduced to drinking Altaran water.

Now, Jim loves Bones, he really does, but he and Spock have been waiting on tenterhooks for _three days_ for his release, so his sex life can go into orbit. The problem is he can hardly turn around to Bones and accuse him of being a cockblock. So, he subsides onto the couch next to his friend with good grace and sips his water.

Bones, he thinks, is looking a lot less haggard than he was a few days ago, which Jim is relieved about. He doesn’t like the idea of being the cause of so much worry to his best friend.

“So, you and Spock sort things out?” Bones asks into the silence.

“Think so, yeah.”

“So, what was it, then?” Bones asks out of the blue.

“What?” Jim stalls, trying quickly to come up with a plausible answer. He really should have seen this coming and been prepared. “Uh…I think it’s a Vulcan/Human thing. You know, I expected him to behave more like a Human and he—”

“—expected you to be more Vulcan – really?”

“Yeah. He doesn’t really get concepts like motivation and I tended to take his stuff way more personally than he ever meant it to be.”

“So you’re not going to try and get yourself killed on every mission just to prove yourself then?” Bones asks.

If that’s the way Bones sees it, Jim’s fine with that. He’s not quite ready to tell Bones about the step he and Spock have taken just yet. “I can’t promise I won’t ever get hurt again, but no, I won’t be as reckless.”

Bones turns to look at Jim. “Good god Jim, I think you’ve just grown up,” he says and smiles.

Yeah, Jim thinks, and with growing up, comes an active sex life. Just the thought of it has Little Jimmy perking up.

They have dinner together in Jim’s quarters and it’s a genuine yawn from him that sends Bones scuttling for the door. “I’ll come by tomorrow and check on you – if the readings are looking good, you can go back onto full duty.”

“Thanks Bones,” Jim says and joins him at his door. A part of him wants to hug his friend because when was the last time anyone did that for him? But the greater – and more sensible – part of him balks at the idea, thinking if he suddenly did it, it would only be surpassed in awkwardness by his suddenly hugging Spock – though he hopes that’s set to change. So he settles on his usual slap on Bones’ back. “Sleep well, old man.”

Bones prods him in the chest. “If I’m old before my time, it’s thanks to you! Happy birthday, Jim.” And having gotten in the last word as usual, he leaves.

Jim goes into the bathroom and after freshening up, knocks on the connecting door to Spock’s cabin.

And then he’s standing inside the super-heated room for the first time, taking in the elaborate Vulcan decorations: red drapes, weapons, artifacts, the smell of incense, and Spock sitting meditating in the middle of his cabin in a black robe. The sight of him leaves him instantly hard. He dimly wonders when…if…this will wear off when sex becomes the norm rather than a novelty. As the door closes behind him, Spock turns to face him.

“Hi,” he says nervously, licking his lips at the sight of the Vulcan.

“Good evening, Jim – happy birthday. Computer, reduce temperature to Human norm.”

“You don’t have to do that – these are your quarters.”

“I am used to a cooler environment, but I have observed on two away missions that you do not relish heat.”

Jim wonders just how closely Spock’s been watching him all this time. “No, you’re right. I used to hate the really hot days in summer when I was a kid. I think humidity gets to me more than heat.”

“The continent of Vulcan I grew up on was largely arid. The greatest humidity was at the planet’s poles.”

Jim wonders why they’re standing there talking about the weather – or climate, or whatever – when they could be doing far more interesting things. Having always been cocky and pretty confident, right now he’s feeling nervous and he’s getting the idea Spock is too. It’s ironic that it was easier when they were screaming at each other and then letting that lead to sex.

He swallows and moves forward until he’s almost chest to chest with Spock. Cupping him gently by the face, he tilts his head and leaning forward, brushes a light kiss on the desirable mouth – easy to do as they’re the same height. Then everything falls into place as they slide arms around each other, and as their bodies press together from shoulder to knees, Jim realizes Spock’s as aroused as he is. The kiss quickly deepens but the battles they fought before are absent; instead it’s seductive and tantalizing, as their tongues dance and lips suck and caress.

Jim pulls back for air. “You do realize the moment you touch me, I’m going to go off like a rocket.”

“Until I was made aware of your lack of sexual experience, I admit to being somewhat perturbed at your over-excitability – that on each encounter, you ejaculated within seconds of my touching you.”

Jim ducked his head. “Yeah, it’s embarrassing.”

Spock drops to his knees. “Then until you learn better control, it would be advantageous to…”

“…take the edge off things?” Jim says when Spock hesitates to find the right word.

“Indeed,” he agrees, opening the front of Jim’s trousers and pulling them partway down his thighs. Spock leans forward and presses his face against Jim’s cotton-clad hard-on and inhales deeply, causing Jim to hiss as he tries desperately not to come at the erotic sight. When Spock opens his mouth and sucks the top of his cock through the cotton, it’s all over bar the shouting as he groans and shudders through a pulsing climax.

Spock gracefully stands and kisses Jim deeply, and he can faintly taste himself on the Vulcan’s hot lips. As they kiss, Jim’s figures out the fastenings to the robe and begins to undo them one by one, to discover to his delight that Spock isn’t wearing anything beneath it.

As the robe falls to the floor, Jim stands back to take in his first full view of Spock in all his naked glory and his eyes fly down to his groin, to the thick thatch of dark hair with his pale-green cock standing proud from it, the color and the double ring giving it an exotic look that Jim’s already fallen in love with.

“You’re beautiful,” he says reverently, as he reaches out and runs his hand across strong shoulders, the broad chest with its light dusting of hair, and the flat stomach, noting the difference in musculature.

“You are overdressed,” Spock responds dryly and Jim agrees, pulling his shirts over his head.

“Shall we take this to the bedroom?” Jim suggests and finds his fingers entwined with Spock’s as the Vulcan leads him to his sleeping area. By the time they reach it, Jim’s shucked out of the rest of his clothes, leaving a trail of them across the floor to Spock’s quarters, each one a marker of progress towards his goal.

Standing beside the bed, they kiss again and Jim relishes the feel of their nakedness, of skin on skin inciting him once again to arousal as his cock begins to fill out and lift. The kiss deepens and with a shove from Spock, they tumble onto the bed, making Jim laugh in surprise and delight at the Vulcan’s obvious enthusiasm.

Jim winds up on top as they kiss and touch and slide together. “It’s like I’ve got this sumptuous meal laid out in front of me,” Jim says when they break for air, “and I don’t know which course to start with.”

“The analogy of food is somewhat disturbing, given there are species such as the Aldebaran slumberworm and Earth’s praying mantis that practice sexual cannibalism.”

Jim laughs and leaning down, takes Spock’s mouth, sucking on his tongue. The feel of their cocks kissing is like pleasure beyond belief and he rotates his hips to gain greater sensation. Spock’s running his hands up and down his back, every touch sending tendrils of fire dancing across his skin.

He feels euphoric, not just because he considers this to be his first ‘proper’ sexual experience, but because he can’t get over Spock’s gentle tenderness – so in contrast to what he experienced before. It’s as though they’re two different people.

Jim wants to map Spock’s body with his mouth and begins by trailing kisses across his face, licking a wet path up his ear and sucking in the tip, eliciting a hiss that he senses is one of enjoyment.

He moves his lips and tongue down Spock’s neck, sucking a hickey into an area he’s sure will be below the line of his uniform, causing Spock to gasp gratifyingly. Sitting back he shuffles back a little and then leans down to take one of Spock’s nipples in his mouth. Jim knows his own nipples are sensitive from playing with them sometimes when he’s jerked off, and as his lips wrap around the tight nub and he sucks, Spock’s body shudders and he gasps. Pleased by the strong reaction, he spends several minutes working on them both until they are stiff and tender, before moving down.

It’s while he’s randomly kissing a section of Spock’s skin that he comes across his heart, thrumming inhumanly quickly beneath the surface of the hot, dry skin. Jim places his ear there to listen for a moment to the organ that gives Spock life as it beats a wildly fast tattoo.

Too impatient to wait any longer, Jim grabs Spock’s shaft, pulling it away from where it’s resting against his taut abdomen, and bending down, swipes away the liquid crystal drop that’s just started to flow down from his slit. He’s never been this close to another man’s cock and revels in the intimacy of it, the similarity to his own lending it a familiarity that gives him the confidence to explore it.

“I love your cock,” he says appreciatively as he skims his hand along it from base to tip. “So much prettier than mine.”

“The term ‘pretty’ can hardly be applied as a descriptor to one’s genitals,” Spock says and Jim grins at him. “I would also add I believe yours to be the more esthetically pleasing of the two.”

The double ridges, he discovers when he dips the tip of his tongue between them, are highly sensitive he discovers when Spock almost jackknifes from sensory overload. Sucking the crown into his mouth, he’s only able to get halfway down before he can feel his gag reflex try to kick in, so he focuses on working the top and the ridges, dipping his tongue into the slit, and swirling it around the head. He loves the feel of it in his mouth, the taste of Spock – he’s never been so turned on in his life.

“Jim,” Spock says, his voice slightly hoarse, causing him to look up from giving his first head. “I wish to touch you too,” he says and sitting up, pulls on Jim’s legs, getting him to shift around until they have access to each other.

The feel of the hot breath against his over-sensitized genitals warns him he’s close again. “Don’t think I’m gonna last much longer,” he warns Spock.

He’s surprised, then, when instead of sucking on him, Spock pushes his legs open and dips his head between Jim’s legs. When he feels Spock’s hot tongue on his hole he gives up momentarily on working Spock to revel in the exquisite sensations wrought by the intimate act.

“Fuck, Spock!” he says in surprise, having no idea until now how sensitive he is there nor how arousing it is to have Spock do something so incredibly carnal with him, as a fire gathers in his balls.

Jim is openly groaning at the pleasurable sensations and almost whimpers when Spock pulls away, reappearing from between his legs to grab his cock and suck it down in one go. With a combination of the feel of Spock’s hot mouth engulfing him and the sight of his formerly uptight first officer sucking him with such blatant enthusiasm, Jim doesn’t really stand a chance as orgasm rips through him and he rides the wonderful waves of sheer ecstasy.

“Jim,” Spock says as Jim tries to draw himself back together again and hopes the reassembled parts of himself are in roughly the same places they were before. He glances down his body to see Spock looking at him…adoringly…and he smiles lewdly before taking the Vulcan’s cock into his mouth and sucking hard. It’s all it takes as Spock groans as his body is wracked with his climax, and shoots five pulses of warm wetness into Jim’s eager mouth.

“Fuck, I could get used to having this every day,” he says as they lie facing each other under the covers. Leaning forward, he kisses Spock tenderly. “My own tamed Vulcan on tap,” he continues after he pulls away.

“I am uncertain ‘tame’ is an accurate descriptor.”

Jim grins. “Okay, my own _wild_ Vulcan, then.”

“That is acceptable.”

He chuckles at Spock’s supposedly non-existent sense of humor.

As they lie together, he has a sudden idea and throws the blankets off them. “Come on, Spock, there’s somewhere I need to be.”

Back in uniform, Jim stands holding hands with Spock on the observation deck. He’s come a long way since he sat in the field with Daisy McAllister four years ago; from local bad-boy to starship captain. He’s where he wants to be, out in the black, exploring. No signs of any Klingons or Romulans yet, but he knows when they meet, with his ship – the _Enterprise_ – he’ll kick ass.

He presses his forehead to the transparent aluminum, gazing at the endless, glittering vista that surrounds them. Now he’s among the stars, they no longer feel as distant as they used to; yet they continue to have the capacity to leave him feeling utterly insignificant – perhaps even more so now he understands them better; and he’s comfortable with that.

He looks at his Vulcan standing silently beside him and leaning in, kisses him tenderly, feeling warm lips responsive against his own until he pulls away. “I’m home, Spock,” he says, looking into the deep brown eyes and seeing his affection reflected back. He turns once more to the endless sea of stars. “ _This_ is where I belong.” _Out here. By your side._

[finis]


End file.
